A train expert has testified that the claim by the Apartheid government that Chief Albert Luthuli died from injuries sustained when he was hit by a goods train is false.
Lesley Charles Labuschagne, an expert witness, said that the fact that Luthuli was taken to hospital still alive after is proof enough that he could not have been hit by a train.
Had that been true, the former ANC president-general would have been dismembered and died instantly.
Labuschagne was testifying in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) on Wednesday at the reopened inquest into Luthuli’s mysterious death. The inquest is presided over by Judge Nompumelelo Radebe.
Labuschagne, 63, told the inquest that he is a qualified steam locomotive driver with 28 years’ experience.
He added that he is also a co-owner of the Harties Steam Trains Company in Hartbeespoort in the North West.
Labuschagne took the stand and told the inquest about his findings of his reconstruction of Luthuli’s accident scene.
Prosecutor Annah Chuene invited Labuschagne to opine on a statement by a fireman who was on the train that allegedly hit Luthuli on July 21 1967. Daniel Greyling later gave an eyewitness account of what happened.
“There are a number of discrepancies in his statement… He [Greyling] said the driver of the train [a Mr Lategan] was driving the train, and then he put [on] the brakes, leading the train to come to a stop. He said the driver told him he suspected that he had hit someone…
“A pedestrian walking over the bridge would be perfectly visible for the train driver to see… If the driver had seen that the train was about to collide with Luthuli, he would have applied the brakes long before the impact… So, the fact that he applied the brakes after the fact, I do not believe there was any collision,” said Labuschagne.
“The driver says he suspected that he may have hit someone. In all my years of driving steam locomotives, when a train collides with a person, the driver knows immediately. The driver does not suspect. There is no such thing,” said Labuschagne.
Labuschagne said the train allegedly hit Luthuli at a speed of 40km/h. He said a human being hit by a train at that speed would have sustained multiple, serious dismembering injuries.
“You would be able to identify the clothing, but not the complete body. It is impossible to see the complete body. The reason for that is because if the train had hit Luthuli, it would have knocked him against the side of the bridge, and his body would have bounced into the train, and been completely dismembered, or thrown off the bridge into the river.
“The driver was not certain if he knocked someone over because I think the driver saw somebody at the last minute and made up a story to cover his own tracks…
“There is confirmation that Chief Luthuli was alive. This again confirms that he could not have been hit by a train on a bridge, because an ambulance was called because he was still alive. If he were hit by a train, he would not have been alive, and an ambulance would not have been called,” said Labuschagne.
The inquest resumes on Thursday with Labuschagne continuing his testimony.
On Monday and Tuesday, Warrant Officer Craig Burgess, a crime scene analyst, testified about his accident scene reconstruction findings.
He said the driver’s account that Luthuli’s right hand was injured from being hit by a train was wrong.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is presenting evidence in the court in a bid to have the initial findings on the death of the iconic anti-apartheid figure overturned.
Luthuli allegedly died from head injuries sustained when he was hit by a goods train in KwaDukuza (then Stanger) in July 1967. A subsequent inquest at the Stanger Magistrate’s Court in September that year ruled the incident an accident.
The Luthuli family and the ANC have both dismissed this claim as untrue.
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