05 February 2021: 39th Anniversary of Dr Neil Aggett
A glimmer of hope for Aggett’s sister and friend
Jill Burger and Gavin Andersson are not holding out any hope that a former security police officer will reveal the truth about Neil Aggett’s death. A ruling that it was not a suicide will be enough.
DEATH IN APARTHEID DETENTION
Remembering Neil Aggett, the modest idealist who died for his beliefs 39 years ago
On the 39th anniversary of Neil Aggett’s death on Friday, 5 February, his sister and cousin reflect on a simple, modest man whose lived ideals would change history and hearts.
On the 39th anniversary of Neil Aggett’s death on Friday, 5 February, his sister and cousin reflect on a simple, modest man whose lived ideals would change history and hearts.
DEATH IN APARTHEID DETENTION
Aggett inquest: ‘Be honest’, judge tells ex-security cop who denied knowledge of torture or cover-ups
A policeman pointed out by several detainees as a vicious and brutal interrogator told the reopened inquest into Neil Aggett’s death that even today he did not believe Security Branch cops used torture and assault as interrogation tactics.
He may not have wanted to hear it and denied it throughout, but Johannes Nicolaas Visser’s two days in the witness stand have come down to confronting unquiet ghosts in the form of allegations against him as a violent abuser and cruel torturer.
Now 87 years old, Visser was a captain in the Security Branch based at John Vorster Square in 1982. He was in charge of the section dealing with non-white affairs.
Former Security Branch police officer concedes political detainees were tortured at John Vorster Square
Former Security Branch Police Officer, Roelof Venter, has conceded that during the 1980s, political detainees had been tortured at the then John Vorster Square Police Station in Johannesburg. Venter has been testifying virtually at the inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist, Neil Aggett.
Aggett had been assaulted and tortured by the Security Branch and was found hanging in his cell in February 1982. Venter says he had never met Aggett even though he had interrogated other political prisoners at John Vorster Square at the time of Aggett’s detention there.
Roelof Venter spent almost 30 years in the Security Branch. He says he was based at John Vorster Square for about six months from December 1981, but that he had never interrogated Neil Aggett.
Visser says he wasn’t aware Aggett had been kept awake for two days
Former security branch police officer Johannes Visser says he wasn’t aware that the anti-apartheid activist, Neil Aggett, had been kept awake for two consecutive days when he interrogated him for 12 hours.
Visser, who’s been testifying at the inquest into Aggett’s death in February 1982, says Aggett never complained about being tortured and assaulted the night before he had questioned him from six in the morning until six at night.
A few days later, Aggett was found hanging in his cell at the then John Vorster Square Police Station in Johannesburg.
The police say he committed suicide but Aggett’s family believe he was murdered.
Visser says that even if he’d known that Aggett had been deprived of sleep, he would have still continued to interrogate him.
Aggett family lawyer, Howard Varney, put it to Visser that the sleep deprivation was part of the torture.
