Rodrigues loses stay of prosecution application bid
The former apartheid cop is accused of involvement in the murder of anti-apartheid activist and teacher Ahmed Timol.
Former apartheid police officer Joao Rodrigues appears at the South Gauteng high court, Rodrigues was an officer in the apartheid-era police’s feared security branch, is accused of being part of a group of policemen who murdered Ahmed Timol while he was in custody in 1971. Gauteng. Picture: Itumeleng English/African News Agency (ANA)
Former apartheid police officer Joao Rodrigues has lost an appeal bid to have a permanent stay of prosecution for the murder of activist Ahmed Timol. The High Court in Johannesburg has dismissed Rodrigues application on Wednesday due to there being no reasonable prospect of success to the appeal.
News24 reports that the former cop had applied for leave to appeal a Gauteng High Court judgment that dismissed his application for a permanent stay of prosecution in June.
The apartheid cop is accused of involvement in the murder of anti-apartheid activist and teacher Ahmed Timol.
Timol died in 1971 after he allegedly fell from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square, now called the Johannesburg Central Police Station.
Timol was arrested in 1971 at the age of 29. The police who interrogated him at the time, including Rodrigues, claimed that he had thrown himself out of a window. In 2017, Timol’s family disputed this, insisting that he had been thrown out of the window by the police.
The National Prosecuting Authority then opened an inquest, which rejected the 1972 report that Timol had committed suicide.
Timol’s nephew, Imtiaz Cajee, who had initiated the reopening of the inquest, has joined the NPA and two other government departments in opposing Rodrigues’ leave to appeal application.
(Compiled by Gopolang Moloko.)
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