Timol's family welcomes NPA rethink on charges

Slain anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol’s family has welcomed the indication that National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Shamila Batohi will review the decision to drop perjury charges against two apartheid security branch police officers implicated in his death, says a Cape Argus report. Following the reopening of the inquest into Timol’s death in 1971 while in police custody at the John Vorster Square police station, security branch officers Seth Sons and Neville Els were recently subpoenaed to testify before the Gauteng High Court. Following their testimonies, Judge Billy Mothle found that the two had lied under oath and called for them to be charged with perjury. This was after Mothle had found that police records conclusively reflected that Els was present when Professor Kantilal Naik, a fellow detainee, was subjected to the ‘helicopter’ method of interrogation, after which he lost the use of his hands. However, Advocate George Baloyi, the Pretoria Director of Public Prosecutions, opted to drop the charges against Sons and Els because their advanced ages, 80 and 82 respectively, placed the state in a difficult position to prove whether they were lying deliberately. Timol’s family, Webber Wentzel, the lawyers representing them, and the South African Coalition for Transitional Justice, had all previously called for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to review Baloyi’s decisions on the matter. NPA spokesperson Sipho Ngwema confirmed that the NDPP had heeded the call to place the decision on review. Imtiaz Cajee, Timol’s nephew, welcomed the decision and said the implication of not charging Sons and Els would send a message, setting a dangerous precedent, to apartheid operatives throughout the country that if they were subpoenaed to testify, they would not be held accountable.

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