The pre-trial hearing of former security police sergeant Joao “Jan” Rodrigues, is expected to commence in the High Court in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning.
Eighty-year-old Rodrigues is accused of being involved in the murder of anti-apartheid activist, Ahmed Timol. Almost 47 years after Timol’s death, the High Court in Pretoria last year found that he died at the hands of apartheid security branch police while in detention.
Rodrigues last appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court in July and was released on bail of R2 000.
In a statement, the Timol family made an appeal to the former Security Branch policeman to tell the truth about how Ahmed Timol was killed.
Imtiaz Cajee, Timol’s nephew who helped reopen the inquest into his death last year, said that if Rodrigues comes forward with the truth, then the family would avoid pursuing a prison sentence in court.
Last year, the reopened inquest into Timol’s death found that he had been tortured and murdered during his detention in John Vorster Square in October 1971
