Pretoria - Overturn the earlier ruling that anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol was not assaulted or tortured but instead committed suicide by jumping put of a 10th floor window.
These were the submissions and pleas to Judge Billy Mothle as final arguments were delivered in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Thursday morning at the reopened inquest into Timol's death.
Timol died on October 27, 1971 whilst under police detention.
State prosecutor Torie Pretorius requested Mothle to overturn the inquest court's initial findings regarding the circumstances surrounding Timol's death.
This as the court had for the duration of the inquest now been able to hear numerous co-detainees testimonies of how they were brutally tortured and assaulted by the security police.
Pretorius also refuted allegations that injuries sustained by Timol were due to a brawl he had been involved in before police apprehended him at a roadblock whilst on route to Fordsburg from Coronationville in October 1971.
Picture: Goitsemang Tlhabye/Pretoria News
He said: "The evidence confirms the detainees were assaulted and there can be no question about it. If you take the injuries on Timol's body this court can make a finding that he was indeed assaulted."
"On the issue of suicide which details a section of the SACP circular; Inkululeko Freedom 2 advocating suicide in the case of apprehension by police is to be regarded as a pure fabrication," said Pretorius.
He added that statements made that Timol opted to take his life when faced with his possible life imprisonment was nothing more than unsubstantiated opinion by the police and not fact.
The legal representative also highlighted that there were numerous contradictions in former apartheid regime's security branch sergeant Joao 'Jan' Roderigues statements.
"During his testimony he gave five different versions of what happened and even noted how the senior officials wanted to make additions to his statement which was yet another version," Pretorius said.
Timol's family advocate Howard Varney SC is expected to ask the court to recommend the investigation of criminal charges against apartheid security policemen who provided false evidence under oath to the re-opened inquest.
Varney said if anything the Inkululeko Freedom 2 document was the go to document police doctored to use to bolster the suicide cover up story.