South African judges have said Inkosi Albert Luthuli died of assault-related head injuries A top court in South Africa on Thursday ruled that Nobel laureate Inkosi Albert Luthuli was beaten to death by Apartheid police, working in conjunction with employees from the South African Railway Company.The Pietermaritzburg High Court has also set aside the 1967 inquest that found Luthuli died as a result of being hit by a goods train. Delivering the judgment, Judge Nompumelelo Radebe said evidence presented at the reopened inquest did not support the 1967 inquest findings.”The finding the ruling of the Magistrate CI Boswell, dated September 1967 at the Stanger Magistrates Court, is set aside. As to the cause and likely cause of death, it is found that the deceased died as a result of a fractured skull, cerebral haemorrhage and concussion of the brain associated with assault.”Judge Radebe also found that a Durban doctor, who travelled to Stanger to attend to the critically injured Luthuli in July 1967, "finished him off" instead of saving his life. Instead of being rushed to King Edward Hospital in Durban after being collected from the scene where he was found unconscious, Luthuli was taken to the poorly resourced Stanger Hospital to be treated for body and head injuries.With a lack of medical practitioners at Stanger Hospital to attend to the nature of his serious injuries, Luthuli waited for hours with no one coming from Durban to attend to him. More than four hours later, a neurosurgeon from King Edward and Wentworth hospitals, Dr Mauritius J. Joubert, arrived at Stanger Hospital.Judge Radebe was critical of the uncaring actions by Stanger Hospital medical practitioners and Dr Joubert. “He (Dr Joubert) came to the Stanger Hospital to finish him off,” said Judge Radebe in isiZulu when she delivered the judgment, saying this was her personal opinion.The reopened inquest into the death of the then ANC president-general started in April after the ANC and Luthuli’s family had expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome of the initial inquest conducted by Magistrate C.I. Boswell at the Stanger Magistrates Court. Luthuli, who was transported to Stanger Hospital at about 10 am, died at 2.25 pm. Boswell had concluded that the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s death was caused by being hit by a goods train and that no one could be blamed. Dr Joubert was among the witnesses who testified at the 1967 inquest. Among the others were train driver Stephanus Lategan, conductor Pieter van Wyk, and fireman Daniel Greyling, who told Boswell that it was possible that Luthuli did not hear or see the oncoming train before it hit him, despite it sounding the horn.Judge Radebe found that Lategan, Van Wyk, Greyling, and Detective Sergeant Andries Petros Berger, a railway police officer from Stanger should be held accountable for orchestrating Luthuli’s murder. Judge Radebe concluded that Luthuli was killed for his activities against apartheid. She said the apartheid government was enraged by United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s visit to Luthuli in Groutville, which was followed by the labeling of apartheid as a crime against humanity. ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu welcomed the ruling, saying this is a historical judgment which has finally confirmed that Luthuli was brutally beaten to death by the apartheid police.”This judgment reaffirms what the ANC, the liberation movement, and the oppressed people of South Africa have always known: that Chief Luthuli was a victim of state-sanctioned murder.”It is a moral victory not only for his family but for all martyrs of our struggle whose lives were cut short by the cruelty of apartheid,” said Bhengu.KwaZulu-Natal ANC spokesperson Fanle Sibisi said the judgment was a monumental victory for truth and justice.“It vindicates the long-held conviction of the ANC, the Luthuli family, and the broader liberation movement that Chief Albert Luthuli did not die in a tragic accident but was deliberately silenced because he represented the conscience of a nation in defiance of the apartheid tyranny. “This judgment will bring much-needed closure, but we also call for justice to prevail and for those who may have played a role in concealing the true circumstances of Chief Luthuli’s death, including health practitioners, law enforcement officials, and others, to be held accountable,” said Sibisi. National Prosecuting Authority provincial spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said "the NPA and its partners will endeavor to address the atrocities of the past and assist in providing closure to the families of the victims of these crimes.”First published by IOL