A former apartheid-era policeman, who had interactions with Imam Abdullah Haron over a two-week period before he died in detention says he now believes the Muslim cleric and activist was tortured.
Johannes Hendrik Burger testified at the reopened inquest into the Imam’s death at the High Court in Cape Town.
Burger also testified at the original inquest in 1970, which found that no one was to blame for Haron’s death.
Haron died in police custody in September 1969 after being held for 123 days.
Burger says that shortly after Haron’s body was found in his cell in Maitland, he was summoned to the security branch offices at Caledon Square police station. There he was only shown an exhibit of the bruise on Haron’s side, where he had complained about pain.
He says he only saw the full diagram depicting the extent of the bruises found in Haron’s body and a broken rib in 2020 when he was interviewed by investigating officer, Col Deon Petersen.
“I did not see the whole post-mortem report, I was only shown the diagram. Col Petersen and I talked about the injuries the Imam had, I don’t know if I’m going to shock the court. When this was shown to me by Col. Petersen, when I saw that, I said, this man was tortured,” says Burger. He says his duties while stationed at Maitland included patrols but also overseeing the cleaning of cells and exercising of detainees.
He testified that when on shift, he held one of the two keys needed to access Haron’s cell.
He says at the time, all he heard was that the Imam was detained because he had been collecting money for terrorism training.
When prodded under cross-examination on whether he viewed Haron as a terrorist, Burger said he never thought anything bad of the Imam as he viewed him as a man of the cloth.
He further said he never witnessed the Imam washing or bathing, never saw who brought or collected him from his cell and that as a uniformed police member, had no dealings with the security branch.
Burger would not be drawn on whether he believed the security branch was seen as an elite unit within the police at the time or whether he had heard allegations of alleged abuse of detainees at the hands of the security branch.
Earlier, former political activist and detainee, Jeremy Cronin testified about his interrogation, in particular by security policeman, Spyker van Wyk, who also interrogated Haron. He testified that van Wyk would say things like, “you know what happened to Haron” which strongly implied that the security police had killed him.
The cross-examination of Burger, who is said to be the last policeman alive to have had interactions with Haron is expected to continue on Tuesday.
VIDEO: Reopened inquest into death of anti-apartheid activist Imam Abdullah Haron continues
