The high court re-opened the inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Imam Abdullah Haron in police cells on Monday.
The officers who interrogated him, all of whom have since died, claimed Haron sustained the injuries when he fell down a staircase at the then Caledon police station, now called Cape Town central police station. The court heard that while in detention, Haron had smuggled out a message on a piece of toilet paper to “Canon Collins”. The message read: “If you hear that I have died in prison by accident, you will know that it will not have been an accident”.
The first inquest into Haron’s death was held in 1970 but state advocate Lifa Matyobeni dismissed it as a “fraud”. “We will submit that a massive and deliberate fraud was perpetrated by the state machinery in the 1970 inquest and as such, it demands justice prevails,” the Matyobeni. “What we will attempt to show is the inconsistency in the version provided by the state branch police who were the only witnesses called to testify about the unaccounted injuries to Mr Haron’s body.”
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