Minister wants inquests into activists' deaths reopened

Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has requested the deaths of anti-apartheid activists Neil Aggett and Hoosen Haffejee be re-investigated. Lamola announced on Friday that he had asked the Judge Presidents of the Gauteng and KZN High Courts to each designate a judge to reopen the inquests in relation to the deaths in detention of the activists, notes TimesLIVE. The Justice Department said Lamola's decision was in terms of section 17(A) of the Inquest Act of 1959 and follows an application by the NPA for the reopening of the inquests. Aggett was a doctor who died in detention in Johannesburg in 1982, aged 28. The inquest into his death held that no one was to blame. Haffejee, a dentist, was found dead in his cell, hanging from his jeans tied to the cell bars of a Durban jail, in August 1977. The original inquest ruled that his death was as a result of suicide.