Court admits Timols into ex-cop’s case

The Timol family was on Wednesday admitted as an intervening party in the application by João Rodrigues‚ the former policeman implicated in the death of Ahmed Timol in 1971‚ for a permanent stay of prosecution.

However‚ the high court in Johannesburg declined the application by the families of two other activists who died in police detention in the 1970s under mysterious circumstances‚ to intervene in the application.

The families of Dr Hoosen Haffejee and Matthews Mabelane wanted to be joined in the proceedings as they feared other victims of apartheid would be denied justice if Rodrigues’s application was successful.

Rodrigues’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution will be heard next month.

Timol‚ an anti-apartheid activist‚ died in 1971 after falling from the 10th floor of the then John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg‚ where he had been detained.

While the original inquest in 1972 concluded that Timol had committed suicide‚ the reopened inquest last year found that Timol’s death was caused by his being pushed.

It also recommended that Rodriques be investigated with a view to his prosecution.

The reopened inquest found that according to his own version‚ Rodrigues had taken part in the cover-up to conceal the murder as an accessory after the fact‚ and had committed perjury by presenting contradictory evidence to the 1972 and 2017 inquests.

Timol’s nephew Imtiaz Cajee called the ruling on the admission of the Timol family a positive outcome.

Cajee said outside the courtroom that although the court had dismissed the other families’ application, their objections would be represented by the Timol family.