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Reporting on the second day of the inquest into the killing of Imam Abdullah Haron, CASSIEM KHAN focusses on the account of an expert witness that questioned the findings of the 1970 inquest that found that Imam Haron had died from injuries sustained after a fall down a flight of stairs.
In Detention
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He hanged himself
He slipped on a piece of soap while washing
He fell from the ninth floor
He hanged himself while washing
He slipped from the ninth floor
He hung from the ninth floor
He slipped on the ninth floor while washing
He fell from a piece of soap while slipping
He hung from the ninth floor
He washed from the ninth floor while slipping
He hung from a piece of soap while washing.– Chris Van Wyk *
There is the view that if you repeat a lie often enough, it will be accepted as the truth. If a lie is not identified, exposed, confronted, and replaced with the fact, it will find itself in the record of history and could, in time, be accepted as the truth. Deaths in detention are one such set of lies that must be identified and exposed in such detail that they will never be used in official records or repeated in school curricula or academic research. But more than that, every effort must be made to expunge such lies from the public imagination.
The inquest into the death in detention of Imam Abdullah Haron, now into its second day (November 8), started to delve into one particular lie found in the 1970 inquest: Imam Haron succumbed from falling down the stairs.
This was part of the testimony of Major Dirk Kotze Genis and Sergeant Johannes Petrus ‘Spyker’ van Wyk that Imam Abdullah Haron fell down a particular set of stairs at Cape Town Central Police Station (then known as Caledon Square). According to these interrogators of Imam Haron, it was dark as they walked down, and Genis went ahead to switch on the light. When Genis turned around, Imam Haron was lying at the bottom of the stairway, on his back. Spyker van Wyk was with Imam Haron at the time of the fall.
For 53 years, the official cause of death of Imam Abdullah Haron was that he died due to injuries sustained from a fall down the stairs. For 53 years, the flight of stairs at Caledon Square police station have been waiting to tell its version of what transpired that night in the dark. On the second day of the inquest Judge Daniel Thulare brought legal counsel, the National Prosecuting Authority team, the investigating officer Lieutenant Colonel Deon Peterson, the Haron family, members of the media and a trajectory specialist, Thivash Moodley, to an in loco inspection.
Before stopping at the infamous steps, the investigating officer took the group to the police cell where Imam Haron was kept from May 28 to August 11, 1969. This was the first time that Professor Muhammed Haron visited the inside of this section of Caledon Square Police Station. The significance of his visit is that 53 years ago he called out to his father from the street below. It was possibly the last time that he heard his father’s voice. Standing in the street and conversing with detainees on the inside was a common practice. One of the congregants of the Al Jamia mosque pretended he had a problem with his car and spoke with Imam Haron. A similar story was told to me by a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) elder, Sipho Mnqibisa, who pretended to sweep the street whilst conversing with PAC leader, Kwedie Mkalipi, also detained at Caledon Square.
Yousuf Gabru, who was detained at Caledon Square in 1975, shared his experience with Judge Thulare and the group, indicating where interrogations took place and which corridors he was marched through to his cell. Gabru will be called to testify formally to the inquest, but the in loco inspection could not have been easy for him.
Moodley, an aeronautical engineer, has testified at the Ahmed Timol, Moses Mabalane, Neil Aggett and Hoosen Haffejee inquests.
In the first two cases, he provided expert opinion on deaths due to falls; in the latter two, he testified on hangings.
Moodley visited the infamous Caledon Square stairs in 2019, where he measured the individual steps and the total height of the flight of stairs.
He used the 1970 testimony of Major Genis and determined the plausibility of the fall with a landing on his back based on the height and weight of Imam Haron.
He sketched possible scenarios and then assessed different falls with the recorded bruises on the autopsy.
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A misstep would have resulted in a fall on the face, an attempt at breaking the fall by grabbing onto the side would have seen bruises on the hip and thighs, and a fall on the back, as recorded by Major Genis, would have resulted in bruises on the back of the head, upper back and buttocks.
Judge Thulare then moved the group to Maitland Police Station, where Imam Haron’s body was found. This would be considered the actual crime scene and was discussed in detail yesterday during the testimony of the investigating officer, Lt Col Petersen.
The inquest re-commenced in court, where Moodley provided a detailed account to be entered into the record.
The fact that the bruises were inconsistent with a fall down the stairs proved that Imam Haron did not fall down the stairs; and there were no other bruises to support Genis’ account of a fall down the stairs. Judge Thulare asked if, in layperson’s terms, Moodley was suggesting that Genis lied. Moodley preferred to stick to the science, repeating that a fall down the stairs was inconsistent with the bruises on Imam’s body.
* The author and poet Chris van Wyk passed away in 2014. He did not have the privilege and pleasure of seeing the impact of his poem on the inquests into Apartheid-era crimes. Poetry as social and political commentary is a powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressed and those that have been deliberately silenced. Poetry and the poem ‘In Detention,’ in particular, have been a source of comfort, support and solidarity for everyone that has lost a loved one that was killed in detention. But this poem surpasses this by becoming a Charter for the Truth to prevail.
Day One of the inquest: https://muslimviews.co.za/2022/11/08/judge-sets-tone-for-the-inquest-there-can-be-no-justice-without-truth/
