Johannesburg - Round two of the Steve Biko autopsy report legal wrangle is set to play out in the High Court in Joburg after Biko’s family filed papers for the Steeles to hand over the report to them.
Having succeeded in interdicting Clive Anthony Steele and Susan Elizabeth Sey (nee Steele) from selling off Biko’s autopsy report to the highest bidder in December, the family of the Black Consciousness Movement leader now want the court to:
* Declare that the two siblings are not owners of the copy of Biko’s autopsy report in their possession.
* Direct Westgate Walding Auctioneers, a company that had intended auctioning off the report, to deliver it to Biko’s son Nkosinathi Biko with immediate effect.
Alternatively, the Steeles and the auctioneers should be barred from selling, copying, alienating, destroying or damaging the report.
The report should also not be circulated in the media or the public domain, as free availability would drive other people to try to auction it off.
“The report belongs to the Biko family. The public auction of the late Steve Biko’s autopsy report is an undignified affront to the late Steve Biko.
“In fact, the auction or sale of a dead person’s autopsy report, irrespective of who that person is, should not be countenanced,” Nkosinathi said in an affidavit.
The Steele siblings are opposing the application and intend to bring a counter-claim for damages and defamation, their attorney Jeremy Clark said on Monday.
They are yet to file their responding papers.
The Bikos first learnt of the Steeles’ intention to auction off a copy of the Black Consciousness Movement leader’s autopsy report in early December after Westgate Walding Auctioneers posted an advert reading: “Autopsy of Biko’s brain… a unique document of the struggle era of great historical importance that gives full details of the autopsy/post-mortem.”
The auction, which would have also seen the auctioning off of activist Ahmed Timol’s autopsy report, was set to take place on December 3 at 10am, but earlier that day, the court interdicted the Steeles from auctioning the report after the Bikos launched an urgent court action.
But the Steeles were bound only by the terms of that order until January 31 - a date that has now been extended to March 31 - hence the current court action.
Joining the Bikos in their application are the three children of the late Jonathan Gluckman, a pathologist who had been appointed by the Bikos to observe as the apartheid regime conducted Biko’s post-mortem after a challenge lodged to the regime’s version that he had died because of a hunger strike.
The autopsy later revealed that Biko died from extensive brain injuries, with the security police then claiming Biko had sustained head injuries after attacking officers interrogating him.
For safekeeping, Gluckman had given a copy of the autopsy report - dated September 20, 1977 - to his personal assistant, Maureen Steele, the Steele siblings’ mother.
Steele died in February 2011 and the Bikos argue that “she made no mention of the report as forming part of her property in her last will and testament”.
The Star