"He (Ahmed Timol) loved life...both of us did."
This was the assertion made by Dr Salim Essop when asked by Judge J Mothle whether he ever thought about committing suicide during what Essop referred to as torture he and Timol endured at the hands of apartheid police.
Essop was testifying at the High Court in Joburg on Tuesday morning at the reopened inquest into the mysterious death of Timol.
In its second day, the inquest was brought by Timol's family to overturn a June 1972 ruling by Magistrate JL De Villiers, who ruled that Timol had taken his life by jumping from the 10th floor of the infamous John Vortsr Square police station; currently known as the Johannesburg police station.
Essop was in his second day of testimony when emphasised that neither he nor his friend Timol would have given in to the abuse he said was meted out against them by security police during their interrogation.
"We had the anticipation that we could be arrested...once you get into the sort of political work we did, we knew what (the consequences were)," Essop explained.
"We loved life, we enjoyed life...that is why we were such good friends."
Dr Essop gave grim details on the injuries he said he suffered during what he called the roughly four days of "non-stop torture".
Referring to a "torture tactic" known as the "mule kick", where he said he was repeatedly kicked by police even when on the floor, Essop said he bled from his nose and mouth, had marks all over his body, his hair was violently pulled from his scalp and his body was stiff "like rocks" from the mule kicks.
He said he was taken to the old HF Verwoerd Hospital in Pretoria, currently known as Steve Biko Academic Hospital, after his interrogation, where he heard a nurse remark upon his arrival: "This guy is not going to make it."
Essop was arrested with Timol in October 1971 after a car they were travelling in was stopped by police and banned SACP and ANC literature were found in it.
Timol died in October 1971.
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