South Africa – The Western Cape High Court received an inquest by the Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, after approving the National Prosecuting Authorities’ application to re-open the case of Claremont’s late Imam Abdullah Haron.
Imam Haron was a social activist and religious leader in the Western Cape whom the Security Police detained under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act. He died in custody at Caledon Square Police Station on the 27th of September 1969.
According to the first inquest held in 1970, the investigators reported that his death was accidental after he fell down a flight of stairs. Which was a common reason given by the Security Police, for the bizarre deaths of political prisoners during the Apartheid Era.
The Department of Justice has pledged that “the renewed investigation into the apartheid crime will consider expert reports from a state pathologist, an aeronautical engineer and a trajectory expert”. To “provide a new perspective into the probable cause of death of Imam Haron”.
Professor Muhammed Haron, the son of the late Imam, was curious as to why the Justice Department took so long to approve the decision. Stating it had been five decades since his father’s passing. Nonetheless, the family and the community are glad that the provisional High court will review the initial inquest done in the 70s.
“We feel the time has come,” he says, “maybe to get some sort of answer or response to the issue, after all, we waited [so long]. We thought it would happen prior to our mother’s demise in 2019… but that was not to be. Nonetheless, I think it is an issue that we feel not only as a family but also as a community, we need to know some of the truth, if not the whole truth.”
Professor Haron mentions that before the announcement, his family and community had launched their own investigation, which was met with many complications, including a lack of crucial information and key witnesses. Despite this, he is hopeful that the joint effort with the justice department will achieve a much better outcome and reveal the truth of what really happened.
“The problem that we have, is that all those who were implicated in the murder are no more, and so we can’t basically take them to task in court. So, in a sense, we’re dealing with ghosts… of people who have died, but we come up with evidence, and of course hopefully, our lawyers, the Weber Wenzel, assisting in this process. Having been able to bring in experts to basically assist and to prove that whatever the inquest findings brought to form way back in 1970 were totally false or totally unacceptable.”
Imam Haron’s death was a great tragedy for his family and the community he served. While the inquest into his father’s death would bring closure to the family and community members, it is unfortunate that those who committed the crime cannot be brought to Justice.
