Address at the fiftieth anniversary remembrance of the death in detention of Ahmed Timol hosted by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Wednesday, 27 October 2021 at the Johannesburg Central Police Station by Mohammad Timol

27 October 2021

Programme Director

Minister/Comrade Ronald Lamola

Fellow Speakers

Family, Friends and Comrades

Thank you for the opportunity to say a few words on behalf of the Timol family on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the death in detention of my brother Ahmed Timol.

I cannot help but shudder at the thought that this building – previously named John Vorster Square – was the site of my brother’s brutal murder. It was a place of torture and dehumanisation. Ahmed was the first to be killed here fifty years ago. Let us also remember:

Tshabizane Wellington Mlungisi, held in JVS died in 1976; official cause of death: ‘suicide by hanging’;

Elmon Malele, died in 1977; held in John Vorster Square and died in a nursing home; official cause of death: ‘natural causes – haemorrhage after hitting his head against a desk during interrogation’;

Mabalena Matthews, held in JVS died in 1977; official cause of death: ‘accidentally fell to his death from the tenth floor’;

Dr Neil Aggett, died in 1982; official cause of death: ‘committed suicide by hanging’;

Moabi Ernest Dipale, died in 1982; official cause of death: ‘committed suicide by hanging’; and

Clayton Sizwe Sithole, died in 1990; official cause of death: ‘committed suicide by hanging’.

At the time of Ahmed’s death, our family lived in a flat in Roodepoort. We had moved there from the town of Breyten in the former eastern Transvaal (now Mpumalanga) in 1949. We were six siblings, Ahmed was the second child and the eldest son

My father, Haji Yusuf Ahmed Timol, had come to South Africa in 1918 at the age of 12 from India to seek a better life thousands of miles from his home village of Kholvad, in the District of Surat, India.

Like many people of his generation, my father was deeply influenced by Dr Yusuf Dadoo, who had led the Transvaal Indian Congress from the 1940s. Dadoo, along with luminaries such as Molvi Cachalia, Goolam Pahad, Roy Naidoo, Ahmed Kathrada and Nana Sita, espoused the politics non-racialism, alliance with all the oppressed people and militant action against colonialism and apartheid.

Ahmed’s strong political convictions were born in this milieu. As a young man, he witnessed the atrocities committed at Sharpeville in 1960, the banning of the liberation movement, the sentencing of Nelson Mandela and others to life imprisonment and the exile of Yusuf Dadoo and Oliver Tambo.

I clearly recollect that Friday, 12 June 1964, after coming from Friday prayers at the local mosque, when my family, including Ahmed, gathered for lunch. We listened to the radio broadcast of Judge de Wet’s judgment and sentence in the Rivonia Trial. It was unbelievable that the leadership of the movement were to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

On 9 September 1964, the fourth known death in police custody was that of the Transvaal Indian Congress activist Suliman ‘Babla’ Saloojee.

Ahmed Kathrada, one of the greatest heroes in our struggle for freedom, and the founder of the Foundation hosting this event, wrote about Babla in his Memoirs:

‘Suliman Saloojee, my dearest friend Babla, was dead, killed by the police. This most gentle of men, this inveterate prankster, my comrade and source of strength, had been picked up under the ninety-day detention law, brutally interrogated and tortured to death – by the sadistic Rooi Rus Swanepoel - then flung from a window on the seventh floor of Gray’s Building, Johannesburg headquarters of the security police, on Wednesday 9 September 1964.

Not surprisingly, the so-called inquest accepted the police version that Babla had committed suicide by jumping to his death. I have never doubted, however, that he died under interrogation, and that his body was then thrown out of the window. The magistrate found that “nothing in the evidence suggested that Saloojee had been assaulted or that methods of interrogating him were in any way irregular.” He found that no one was to blame for his death.

Ahmed attended Babla’s funeral in 1964, profoundly disturbed by the murder but not knowing that he would befall the same fate some seven years later.

It is well-known that Ahmed’s involvement grew from student activism, working as a teacher and then meeting Dr Dadoo and Molvi Cachalia in Mecca during the Haj pilgrimage in early 1967. He then moved to London where he worked as a teacher at a school for immigrant children from the Indo-Pak subcontinent.

He was recruited into the underground of the movement and was sent to the Soviet Union where his political skills were honed. After three years, he returned to South Africa in 1970 as an underground operative of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the African National Congress and the SA Communist Pary.

Ahmed and his comrade Salim Essop were arrested at a roadblock on 22 October in Coronationville. It was alleged by the police that banned literature was found in the car, which led to their arrest. A huge clampdown followed. The homes of at least 115 people were raided and many people questioned and detained. The state was sending a clear message that they would not tolerate any form of opposition to apartheid rule.

Five days later, exactly fifty years ago, to the day and date, Wednesday, 27 October 1971, my brother Ahmed Timol died in detention. He was the twenty-second person to die in these circumstances.

At the time of Ahmed’s arrest, I was in Durban looking for employment. Some days later, the Security Police arrived and detained me. I was kept in solitary confinement, interrogated, and tortured. A day after Ahmed’s death, the police informed me that Ahmed had died. I was unsure whether this was true or merely a tactic to ‘break’ me.

But as I gathered up the clues, I came to the shocking realisation that my brother was no more. I was devastated and my thoughts immediately went to the impact it was having on my parents and the rest of the family. I would only learn about the circumstances surrounding his death after my release from detention in March 1972.

The pain cut very deep indeed. It was best expressed by my mother, Hawa Timol, at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings on 30 April 1996:

‘They hit my son tremendously. They arrested him on a Friday and they killed him and said that he committed suicide. I want to know who assaulted him and I want to know who lodged the complaint about my son. It took me quite a bit of difficulty to raise my children. It is 25 years now and that I will not forget what happened. I ask the Almighty that I will not forget what happened and that I need to know who lodged the complaint and what happened. I will not forget what happened, I need to know.’

After my release, I learned of Ahmed’s funeral, which was in a period of heightened repression. The community were profoundly angered by what everyone knew to be murder – no less. Thousands turned up to the Muslim funeral – people from all walks of life – races and creeds, men, and women and young and old.

My comrade Prema Naidoo later told me that he and Naseem Pahad had arranged impromptu open-air rallies in Lenasia on the grounds where the Nurul Islam Mosque is today and at the Fietas sports grounds.

As a family, we were not surprised when Magistrate de Villiers inquest ruled in June 1972 that the cause of death was ‘suicide’ and that nobody was responsible for his death despite the presence of numerous injuries on his body.

As I look back to more than fifty years ago, I remember a wonderful brother, son, uncle, friend and comrade.

As the eldest son in a conservative Muslim family and community, Ahmed always took his responsibilities seriously. After completing his matric, he went out to work for a year due to the family’s dire financial position. In 1961, at the age of 19 years, Ahmed enrolled at the Teachers Training College and successfully completed his studies in 1963. He was loved dearly by our parents, his siblings, and nephews and nieces, which he reciprocated.

Ahmed taught as a teacher in Roodepoort and London. He was loved by his students for his easy style, dedication and passion and worked in harmony with his fellow teachers.

He had a wide circle of friends, including political activists such as Aziz and Essop Pahad. I remember a frequent visitor to our small flat in the early 1960s was a person named Cornelius from Dobsonville township who was a member of the banned ANC. The duo spent many long hours in political discussions.

During his stay in London, he had a long-standing relationship with an Italian/English woman named Ruth Longoni. He chose to return to South Africa to pursue his underground activities, putting the relationship on hold.

As a family, we always believed that the apartheid-era judgment of the original inquest was fundamentally flawed. Its intention was to absolve the security policemen involved from any responsibility for his death. Through the relentless efforts of my nephew Imtiaz Cajee, and the assistance of Yasmin Sooka of the Foundation for Human Rights and the Legal Resources Centre, led by the late and great George Bizos, we secured a second inquest.

Frank Dutton, the lead investigator, uncovered new information that convinced the NPA to re-open the case; and Advocate Torie Pretorius and Advocate Shubnum Singh of the NPA played a significant role in the re-opening of the inquest.

Our lawyers, lead counsel Howard Varney, Musa Musandiwe, Naseema Fakir and attorney Moray Hathorn from Webber Wentzel, acting pro bono, did a sterling job in convincing the court that Ahmed was murdered. We are deeply appreciative of their work.

I want to pay particular tribute to Dr Salim Essop, the late Professor Kantilal Naik and Dilshad Jhetam for coming forward to the reopened inquest and reliving their horrific torture at John Vorster Square. Their testimony was crucial in overturning the original judgement and convinced the court that Ahmed was murdered. This was a huge victory, not only for our family but for all the families of those individuals who had died in detention. I wish that my parents, and especially my mother, was alive to hear Judge Billy Mothle rule on 12 October 2017 that Ahmed had “died as a result of having being pushed to fall, an act which was committed by members of the Security Branch with dolus eventualis as a form of intent, and prima facie amounting to murder.”

I want to add my voice to the growing call for the state to investigate deaths in detention at the hands of the security police in order to overturn the erroneous findings of apartheid era courts. We owe it to memory of those that had died and their families that this wrong is made right – as it had done for the Timol family.

Thanks also to the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation for organising this event and for being in the forefront of recording and preserving the history of the struggle against apartheid – very much the passion of our late comrade Uncle Kathy.

Ahmed died in struggle as a martyr, a hero, a patriot, a role model. His death was not in vain – it gave hope and inspiration to many to defeat the brutal oppressive apartheid regime and witness the dawn of freedom as enshrined in the Freedom Charter.

I believe it is our responsibility at this time in our history to “defend the gains of our democracy” and to ensure that we have a responsibility to our martyrs to take a stand against corruption and maladministration that have become endemic in our country. Let Ahmed’s death and the death of all our freedom fighters, not be in vain!

Thank you! Amandla!

Issued by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, 11 November 2021