TUESDAY, 3.30PM
AFRICAN National Congress lawyers told the Shell House inquest on Tuesday that police might be guilty of culpable homicide for failing in their duty to prevent clashes between supporters of the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party during a march in Johannesburg in 1994.
The inquest is probing the deaths of 19 people killed during a march through central Johannesburg by 20 000 IFP supporters demanding constitutional rights for the Zulu king on March 28 1994. The march was characterised by widespread violence, and left at least 50 people dead in its wake.
The suggestion that police negligence was to blame arose when presiding officer Judge Robert Nugent queried the line of questioning of witnesses. After ANC advocate Danny Berger questioned police witness Constable Grant Skippers on Tuesday, Nugent asked the ANC lawyers if their line of questioning pointed at towards suggestions of culpable homicide. He said he was asking because he had a problem with this line of questioning.
Advocate George Bizos said his team would submit that it had been the duty of the police to protect both the marchers and the occupants of Shell House. “They should have taken steps to prevent these two groups coming into contact,” Bizos said. Those who had a duty to protect people and failed to perform that duty could be guilty of culpable homicide. Nugent replied he would have difficulty with this argument. However, he said this did not mean he was discarding the possibility of a finding of culpable homicide.