Inquest into Chief Luthuli death to hear new evidence
The State says new evidence will be introduced in the new inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Chief Albert Luthuli.
Proceedings kicked off in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday, with prosecutors saying they intend calling several witnesses.
They include testimony a steam locomotive driver, medical experts and police officials tasked with reconstructing the scene.
The initial inquest by the apartheid government concluded that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was hit by a goods train in Groutville in 1967. He was the president of the ANC at the time.
Advocate Ncedile Dunywa, the Deputy Director for Public Prosecutions in KZN, told the High Court during his opening statement that they hope the findings of the court a quo will be overturned once they've presented their case.
READ: Inquest into deaths of anti-apartheid heroes to begin in PMB
" A steam boilermaker will inter alia testify about how this type of a locomotive operates. He will also proffer his opinion on injuries, which would likely be sustained by a person struck by the said train. The State will further present the medical evidence of a chief pathologist. His medical expert opinion will show that the injury sustained by the deceased could not have been caused by an impact of a moving train on a human body."
Dunywa says the state intends to prove that those initially tasked with handling the investigation into Luthuli's death colluded with each other.
"Evidence will be placed before your ladyship which will expose collusion between the security police, district surgeons, pathologists, prosecutors and magistrates including the magistrates that presided over the initial inquest on the 21st of September 1967. We shall present to your ladyship how the apartheid government ensured that the treatment of a black man regardless of stature was beneath that of a human being and that the reputation of law enforcement agencies had to be protected at all costs."
"Additional evidence will be tendered in this proceedings which may persuade the court to overturn the findings of the initial inquest."
Luthuli's family, including his grandson, were at court on Monday for the start of the inquest.
Senior members of the ANC including Zweli Mkhize, Jeff Radebe, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, Mahlengi Bhengu Motsiri and Cyril Xaba also attended proceedings.
The National Prosecuting Authority announced the re-opening of the inquest last year, along with one into the 1981 death of activist and human rights lawyer, Griffiths Mxenge in Umlazi.
Mxenge’s killers were granted amnesty after confessing at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
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