The ANC has sent its convener of the KwaZulu-Natal provincial task team, Jeff Radebe, to testify in the ongoing Chief Albert Luthuli inquest in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday.
Radebe would deliver evidence the party wants to use to disprove a previous inquest that was conducted by the apartheid government, which has since been discredited as a massive cover-up.
The apartheid regime claimed that Luthuli died after he was hit by a goods train.
ANC members asked to show support
“Cde [comrade] Jeff Radebe will testify on behalf of the ANC,” the party said in a statement, asking its members to gather outside the high court to show their support.
At the time of his death in 1967, Luthuli was the president-general of the ANC. Seven years earlier, he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the apartheid government was uncomfortable and stripped him of his chieftaincy.
The inquest has already heard how the magistrate who presided over the previous inquest worked with apartheid police and doctors to cover up what is now appearing as an assassination.
The grandson of Chief Albert Luthuli has told the Pietermaritzburg High Court that the apartheid administration made up the circumstances surrounding his grandfather’s death.
According to Albert Mthunzi Luthuli, who was named after his grandfather, there was an Afrikaner man who wanted to tell his father the truth about Luthuli’s death, but he had to pay for it.
Despite being young when his grandfather was murdered, he told the court that he knew him.
“I was two-and-a-half months old when my grandfather died; however, it has felt like I have known him very well because the family always spoke about him and his values,” the grandson said.
Pain of not knowing the truth
The 57-year-old said, for as long as he can remember, his family would, from time to time, talk about the pain of not knowing what happened on that fateful day.
“What the family knew was that the story that was told by the apartheid government regarding the circumstances and reasons for my grandfather’s death was not true. The false claims that Luthuli was blind and deaf,” he said.
According to the grandson, the apartheid government claimed that Luthuli was half-blind and deaf; therefore, he could not see the train nor hear it that allegedly struck him.
“These assertions are utterly false. On the day of the purported accident, Luthuli left home in the morning and walked to the bus stop.
“He boarded the bus and got off at the bus stop closest to the shop. He still needed to walk close to 2km from that bus stop to his shop.
“At the shop he held a meeting with Mr Mabaso and made sure that everything was in order before departing to walk to the sugarcane fields. No deaf or blind person would have been able to do all of this,” he said.
He further revealed that there was an Afrikaner man who claimed to know the truth behind his grandfather’s death.
Family asked to pay to hear the truth
“While I was in high school, my father told me that there was an Afrikaner man who approached him and asked if he was Luthuli’s son.
“After confirming that, the man asked if my father wanted to know how Luthuli died. When he responded yes, the man asked him how much he was willing to pay, and he got upset.
“There was another story to Chief Luthuli’s death, the real story, the truth.”
Luthuli was the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
At first, it had been said that his death in 1967 was an accident. This was the result of an inquest that concluded that he was hit by a train while he was crossing a railroad track.
He fractured his head and died, according to the initial inquest.
However, the court has recently ruled in favour of a new inquest. This came after the Luthuli family expressed dissatisfaction with the initial inquest outcome.
Luthuli’s daughter-in-law, Velemina Luthuli, last week poured cold water over claims made by a newspaper that Luthuli was “half-blind” prior to his death.
Velemina told the court that her father-in-law was not in poor health, disagreeing with the newspaper that described him as half-blind.
Banning orders
“Yes, he did undergo an eye operation, but his eyesight was reasonably good. In the evening at home, the chief would read the Bible by candlelight and sing songs from the hymnbook, as we did not have electricity back at the time.
“I do not agree with the newspaper report because the train is so big. How could he not see something so big if he could read the font of the Bible?” asked Velemina.
She said that Luthuli never used a walking stick. He would walk kilometres through plantations [sugarcane], and “as far as I know, he would always be alone”.
“Maybe one or two people would stop him on the road because his banning orders did not allow him to have more than one person in his company at any time.
“So he could not have many people or walk with many people,” she added.
