(Anthony Schultz)
Should the inquest into Ahmed Timol’s death find foul play, the Timol family lawyers will recommend that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) lay charges of murder or accessory to murder against Joao Rodrigues.
The former Security Branch clerk is allegedly the last person to have seen Timol alive.
This was advocate Howard Varney’s dramatic warning, at the end of his three-day cross-examination of Rodrigues on Wednesday, should the inquest find he collaborated with the Security Branch to fabricate evidence or directly helped them orchestrate Timol’s “fall”.
The recommendation would also include he be prosecuted by the NPA for perjury.
“I put it to you that you collaborated with the Security Branch to cover up the repeated grievous attempt to do harm to Mr Timol as well as his murder,” Varney said in the Pretoria high court where the inquest is being held.
In response, Rodrigues maintained his innocence.
Rodrigues has so far repeated the testimony he made in 1972 at the first inquest into Timol’s death. He reiterated that Timol killed himself after he opened a window and “dived” out from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square (currently Johannesburg central police station).
Over the past three days, advocates for the NPA and the Timol family have tirelessly pressed Rodrigues about his role in Timol’s death and how he was unable to stop Timol from diving through the window given the smallness of the room and Rodrigues’ much bigger build in comparison to the anti-apartheid activist.
Also under scrutiny is how Rodrigues could not have seen Timol was injured when two forensic pathologists gave evidence to the inquest that Timol’s injuries were visible and debilitating. The Timol family believes he was tortured.
New evidence points to a cover up
This week, Rodrigues told the court that he had been “pressurised” to produce a fabricated statement which would claim he fought with Timol prior to his death. The pressure, he testified, came from a senior in the Security Branch, but he alleges he refused to falsify evidence.
Varney interpreted this new evidence differently. The advocate suggested that Rodrigues was pinned as a scapegoat who was alone with Timol before the fall. The two interrogators who left the room after he arrived, Captain Gloy and Captain Van Niekerk, were therefore exonerated from scrutiny. The captains are believed to have tortured Timol.
If Rodrigues agreed to say he fought with Timol, it would explain the injuries on Timol’s body before the fall, but it was a step too far for the apartheid cop, Varney said.
The advocate suggested that Van Niekerk and Gloy were in the room with Timol as his body dropped, but Rodrigues, a junior in the Security Branch, was an easy man to pin as a witness to his death.
In court on Wednesday, Rodrigues denied any truth behind Varney’s suggestions, saying he did not see injuries on Timol’s body and that the anti-apartheid activist willingly killed himself.
The inquest is currently on lunch break at the Pretoria high court, but when it resumes Judge Billy Mothle, who is presiding over the matter, will return to cross-examine the apartheid cop.