Family optimistic inquest will reveal truth behind anti-apartheid activist’s death in police custody

The family of anti-apartheid activist Imam Abdullah Haron has expressed confidence in the inquest into the circumstances of his death five decades ago, saying an investigation will bring closure to his children and grandchildren.

The Imam Haron Foundation said the family remained optimistic that the inquest, to be held in November, will finally reveal what happened on September 27 1969 when he died in security police custody.

“Let it be stated that 53 years have elapsed and we have not been officially informed how our father died at the hands of the security branch on the 27th of September 1969,” the family said via the foundation.

“We remain optimistic that the 1970 inquest findings, which reached questionable conclusions, will be overturned after the November 2022 inquest is reopened.”

The family said the inquest was necessary “to underline that the apartheid regime and its state security operatives were responsible for our father’s murder; and two, that, as a family, the findings will bring us some sort of closure”.

“It is worth noting that the imam’s wife, our mother, Galiema Sadan-Haron, passed on in 2019 without any formal admission of the truth behind her husband’s death.”

The inquiry hearings will be held between November 7 and 18 before judge Daniel Thulare, formerly the chief magistrate of Cape Town, at the high court in Cape Town.

Justice and correctional services minister Ronald Lamola in June asked the Western Cape judge president to designate a judge to reopen the 1970 inquest, which found a “natural” cause of death and exonerated all involved.

In Haron’s case, magistrate JSP Kuhn found that an alleged fall down a flight of fewer than a dozen stairs was the primary cause of the imam’s death — a lack of blood flow to his heart. The judgment found that Haron died of “myocardial ischemia ... due to, in part, trauma superimposed on a severe narrowing of a coronary artery”.

But pathologist Dr Percy Helman told the inquest that all of the 27 bruises could not have been caused by the alleged fall and that Haron would have suffered so much pain from his injuries he would have been unable to move. Helman also said the injuries caused blood to clot in the imam’s body.

Magistrate Kuhn could not, and did not, account for all of Haron’s injuries, which apart from the 27 bruises, included a broken rib, internal bleeding at the base of his spine and an empty stomach (he had fasted every day during his detention to remain conscious of God, and his wife would bring him soup every evening). A few days before his death, the security police prevented her from seeing him.

The Claremont imam, from Al-Jaamia Mosque, would have turned 98 in September.

Events leading up to his death began on May 28 1969, when two large security policemen brought the imam home and ransacked the property. Galiema and his daughter Fatiema, then aged six, looked on aghast.

After 123 days in solitary confinement, allegedly being beaten, tortured and psychologically abused, Haron died.

Two days later, on September 29, his family and at least 30,000 mourners accompanied his body for 10km to the Mowbray Muslim Cemetery, watched and photographed by security branch police. It was one of the biggest funerals witnessed in Cape Town.

The foundation said since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was unable to resolve all catalogued cases, it had left behind too much unfinished business.

“Its work has remained incomplete to this day. Many of us that form part of the Victims’ Family Group (VFG) were alerted that political interference not only slowed down the process but that it brought all permissible investigations to an abrupt halt.

“We thus wish to confidently express that our democratic government did not do enough to address and resolve prominent cases, including those of Steve Biko, the Cradock Four, the Simelane case and numerous others. All of these, we opine, were as a result of purposeful political interference ... an issue that should be dealt with by civil society organisations ... during this post-apartheid era.”

The foundation said the family had been assisted by the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) and “has been in close contact” with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and police to prepare for the reopening of the inquest.

“We look forward to this Haron inquest hearing with the enthusiastic expectation that truth will be revealed and that some closure for all of us in the Haron family and those close associates in the community will be reached.”

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