The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is to exhume the remains of Looksmart Ngudle, the first security detainee to die under apartheid detention laws back in 1963.
The authority began investigations last year to locate his remains at the request of Ngudle’s son, Siyanda, NPA spokesperson Lucinda Moonieya said on Wednesday.
The exhumation will be conducted by Luis Fondebrider, president of the Argentine Anthropology Forensic Team, together with Morongoa Mosothwane, of the archaeology department at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Thabang Manyapelo, of the anatomy department at the University of Cape Town.
It will take place on Thursday at Mamelodi West cemetery, near Pretoria.
Ngudle was found hanging in his cell on September 5 1963. An inquest was held and the lawyers for the Ngudle family argued that if he had committed suicide, it would have been as a result of severe torture, Moonieya added.
According to a NPA statement, Ngudle, together with a group of Umkhonto weSizwe members from Cape Town, was detained and taken to Pretoria where he and the others were interrogated and severely tortured by members of the police force.
”His involvement in politics began in the 1950s and he was an active member of the African National Congress, South African Communist Party and South Africa Congress of Trade Unions.
”In May 1963, an order banning Ngudle from participating in political activities was issued and he was confined to the Wynberg magisterial district in Cape Town. But, two months later, police swooped on his place of hiding and that is when he was arrested and moved to Pretoria and held at the Pretoria North police cells.
”Tragedy struck when he was found hanging in his cell on September 5 1963.” — Sapa