Detail
- Artist: Francois Smit
- Published in: The Sunday Independent
- Author of article: Jeremy Gordin
- Date: 22/10/2006
- Paper: 280gsm 100% cotton acid free paper
- Ink: Epson ultrachrome archival pigment ink
- Image Size (printarea): 594mm x 420mm
- Frame: Optional
- Edition: Limited edition of 12
A short extract from the article
Thirty-five years have passed after the activist's violent death, and still no one has been charged.
Friday, October 27 will mark the 35th anniversary of the death of Ahmed Timol, a 29-year-old ANC/Communist Party activist, who fell to his death from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square police station.
Timol, arrested five days before at a road block, was being interrogated by members of the security branch when he plunged 10 storeys.
Ask someone who is 50 or older, from almost anywhere in the world, if he or she recalls the day when US president John F Kennedy was gunned down, and the chances are good that this person will even tell you what he or she was doing on November 22 1963.
Ask a South African who is (say) 43 or older if he or she remembers the day when Timol was thrown, or jumped, from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square, and more than likely most people will remember the incident, if not the precise day.
If some of the South Africans whom one is asking are being honest, they will probably not recall Timol by name, because it seems that in those days nobody but whites had names.
The district surgeon summoned to John Vorster Square (now re-named Johannesburg Central police station) to confirm that Timol was dead, referred to the body of “an Indian man� and Sergeant Joao Rodriques, one of the policemen supposed to have been guarding Timol at the time, testified at Timol’s inquest that: “The Indian appeared shocked when he heard [a certain] name… The Indian asked me if he could go to the toilet …�
Timol was only one of the 72 people who died – actually most were killed even if they “committed suicide� – while in police detention between 1963 and 1990. . .
Timol family appeals for justice
