Apartheid-era policeman Joao Rodrigues applies for leave to appeal

Joao Rodrigues, the former security branch officer implicated in the murder of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol in 1971, has applied for leave to appeal against a judgment which said he must stand trial.

Earlier this month, the Johannesburg High Court dismissed Rodrigues' application for a permanent stay of prosecution.

Rodrigues made the application after being charged with Timol's murder in July 2018.

Timol died after falling from the 10th floor of the then John Vorster Square police station in central Johannesburg, where he had been detained.

The original inquest in 1972 concluded that Timol had committed suicide, but it was reopened in 2017, headed by judge Billy Mothle, who found that his death was a result of being pushed. It also recommended that Rodrigues be investigated.

In his application for leave to appeal filed on Wednesday, Rodrigues listed a number of grounds to support his application.

One was that the high court misdirected itself by not finding that the institution of criminal charges, 47 years after the incident, infringed on Rodrigues’ right to a fair trial that should begin and be concluded without unreasonable delay.