The Pietermaritzburg High Court has set aside a 1967 inquest conducted by the apartheid government and falsely concluded that former ANC president Chief Albert Luthuli was hit by a passing goods train in Groutville, KwaZulu-Natal, where he owned a store and a farm while pursuing the fight against the regime.
Judge Nompumelelo Hadebe, after months of listening to ample oral and written evidence, ruled that Luthuli, a prominent figure in the fight against apartheid, was indeed murdered.
Past findings set aside
Hadebe said that all the experts who testified were competent and their opinions could be relied upon, and they set past findings aside.
“The evidence of expert witnesses who testified during the reopened inquest shows that all these experts are competent experts, and they are competent to express their particular opinion; they all have personal knowledge of the topics they testified on and have experience in their respective topics.
“We relied on the knowledge and the experience of other acceptable experts in their respective fields; they demonstrated that they have grounds upon which they base their opinions,” she said.
Entrenched culture of lying
She added that it is true that there was a culture of lying in the past regime.
“There was, and perhaps even currently, an entrenched culture of lying about the true facts where a murder of a political activist is involved and apartheid was institutionalised, with the law being the primary tool to give effect to apartheid,” she said.
She then overturned the decisions made by the former magistrate of the Stanger-Groutville region, CI Boswell, thereby exposing those who were left behind for the murder of the anti-apartheid activist, who was also a local chief.
The court was packed with ANC leaders and Luthuli family members who rejoiced when Hadebe made the ruling.
