The KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg will today hand down judgment in the reopened inquest into the death of Albert Luthuli, the former African National Congress (ANC) president-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
According to EWN, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) asked the court earlier this year to reopen the inquiry, citing new evidence suggesting that Luthuli may have been murdered rather than accidentally killed by a train in 1967.
The original apartheid-era investigation concluded that Luthuli died after being struck by a goods train while walking on the railway line near his home in Groutville, KwaDukuza, KwaZulu-Natal.
Luthuli, who became the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, led the ANC during some of the most repressive years of apartheid. At the time of his death, he was banned from leaving his home area and barred from engaging in political activity.
The reopened inquest, which began in April, heard from family members, forensic experts, and former colleagues who questioned the original findings.
Witnesses testified that it was highly unlikely that the 69-year-old Luthuli would have failed to hear an approaching steam train.
A forensic pathologist re-examined his postmortem report and concluded that the injuries listed were “not consistent with those of a person being struck by a moving train”.
Luthuli’s grandson, Sandile Luthuli, told the court the process had weighed heavily on the family for decades.
“We hope that this process will actually unravel what happened and set the historical record straight and, to the extent that anyone can be found culpable for this, that really would bring us closure,” he said.
The reopened inquest also heard from a Hawks investigator who re-examined the case but said several key witnesses from 1967, including the train driver, conductor, and the firefighter first on the scene, could not be traced.
Despite this, prosecutors believe that the available evidence is strong enough to challenge the apartheid government’s official account.
According to BBC News, the Luthuli family has long described the 1967 inquiry as “a whitewash meant to cover up the activities of the apartheid government.”
Sandile Luthuli said the family “looked forward to an independent judiciary” that could finally determine the truth about what happened on that day in July 1967 .
The family has expressed hope that today’s judgment will help correct the historical record.
“Hopefully, through this inquest, we will be able to find closure and the opportunity to debunk the myth of him being hit by a train,” Sandile Luthuli said.
The outcome of the inquest could set a precedent for other reopened apartheid-era cases, as the NPA continues to revisit dozens of deaths of anti-apartheid activists previously ruled as accidents or suicides.
Judgment proceedings are set to begin at 10:00 SAST at the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg, and can be live streamed below:
