Charge Security Branch officers with activist s death, dailymaverick.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailymaverick.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The ANC’s silent ‘policy’ and the government’s behind-the-scenes suppression of the post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission prosecutions has meant the perpetrators of apartheid’s crimes against humanity and human rights violations go unpunished. How much longer will the governing par.
De Klerk seeks accountability What about his own? theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Carl Niehaus was left with egg on his face when he was forced on Monday to retract parts of his affidavit to the reopened inquest into trade unionist Dr Neil Aggett’s death in detention at Johannesburg’s John Vorster Square police station on 5 February 1982.
Niehaus, an ANC MK veteran, was also a detainee in the 1980s. He took the stand because his 2020 affidavit to the court was not accepted by counsel for Security Branch policeman Nicolaas Deetlefs, who was a warrant officer at the time. The dispute was over Deetlefs’ denials of ever assaulting Niehaus.
Niehaus, a witness for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), also said in his affidavit that he wanted to testify at the reopened inquest to dispute evidence given by a Security Branch policeman, Joseph Nyampule, in 2020. It was “in order that he [Nyampule] not be allowed to peddle lies”, Niehaus said.
Worms were clearly spilling from the can when private investigator Frank Dutton came to the conclusion in 2015 that there was enough evidence to push for reopening the 1982 inquest into Neil Aggett’s death in detention.
On Thursday and Friday last week Dutton put his findings before the reopened inquest hearings. He was unequivocal: investigations into Aggett’s death were a sham.
He said he believed there were two possible reasons why Aggett was found hanging in his cell. Dutton said the apparent suicide was either to cover up the ill treatment of Aggett “to prevent conclusion that they drove him to suicide, or simply that he murdered by Security Branch members.”