Inquest and Media Reports
Inquest Records: 30 August – 3 September 2021
Fathima Joosub Ganie Saucer: (Similar Fact Witness) 30 August 2021
Raymond Sorrel Suttner: (Similar Fact Witness) 30 August 2021
Mohammad Timol: (Similar Fact Witness) 30 August 2021
Dr Shakeera Holland: (Expert Witness Forensic Pathologist) 01 September 2021
Yunis Shaik: (Similar Fact Witness) 02 September 2021
Matheevathinee Benjamin: (Informant Witness) 03 September 2021
#PODCAST Witness in #HaffejeeInquest accuses district surgeons and judiciary of overlooking torture
30 August 2021: Newsbreak LOTUS FM
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
By Newsbreak Producer, Genevieve Lanka – A witness in the inquest into Doctor Hoosen Mia Haffejee’s death during detention in 1971 has testified that many apartheid magistrates and judges overlooked signs of torture by the security police. UNISA emeritus professor Raymond Suttner is the first of three witnesses that will be giving evidence today.
Court told of ‘theatrics of terror’ and torture by Security Branch police
The spectre of torture at the hands of the Security Branch police is still the lived experiences of former detainees and their family members giving evidence in the reopened inquest into the death of Dr Hoosen Haffajee.
Pathologist expected to testify at re-opened inquest into Hoosen Haffejee’s death
1 September 2021, 6:01 AM | | @SABCNews
Pathologist Dr Shakeera Holland is expected to testify on Wednesday in the re-opened inquest into the death of anti-apartheid activist Dr Hoosen Haffejee in police detention in 1977. Haffejee’s body was found hanging from his cell doorat the Brighton Beach police station in Durban. Magistrate Trevor Blunden ruled in the initial inquest in 1978, that the numerous injuries on Haffejee’s body had no bearing on his cause of death – which he found to be hanging.
Activist Hoosen Haffejee’s ‘suicide’ in question
Forensic pathologist finds signs of homicidal death.
1 September 2021: The Citizen by Bernadette Wicks
Evidence now appears to place Hoosen Haffejee in an interrogation with police officers from the infamous apartheid-era security branch at the time of the his supposed suicide. The political activist was found dead in a cell at Brighton Beach police station in Durban on the morning of 3 August, 1977. He had been arrested on his way to work the day before on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the state. A post-mortem put time of death at 3am-4am. Police records showed he was in his cell, lending credence to the picture painted of Haffejee having taken his own life.
https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2602134/hoosen-haffejees-suicide-in-question/
Haffejee’s cousin, Yunis Shaik, gives moving testimony of apartheid-era torture
Johannesburg – Yunis Shaik, the cousin of the late Dr Hoosen Haffejee, on Thursday gave moving testimony at an inquest probing the circumstances surrounding the death of the 26-year-old Pietermaritzburg dentist. Haffejee was found hanging in his cell at the Brighton Beach Police Station in the early hours of the morning on August 3, 1977.
Girlfriend grilled in court about informing on Hoosen Haffejee to security police
3 September 202: @SABCNews
The former girlfriend of anti-apartheid activist, Dr. Hoosen Haffejee, has been grilled in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, about the role she played in the events leading to his arrest and death in police custody in 1977. The Pietermaritzburg High Court has re-opened the inquest into Haffejee’s death after an inquest in 1978 ruled that he hanged himself in a police cell. Madhi (pronounced: MA-ti) Benjamin has admitted that she was an informer for the security police even before she met Haffejee.
Haffejee’s ex: ‘I was the snitch’
3 September 2021: Capital Newspapers By Niyanta Singh
Admitting that she was the ‘snitch’ who “sold out on Haffejee”, retired nurse Matheevathinee ‘Mathee’ Benjamin described Dr Hoosen Haffejee as a “know-it-all and self-opinionated”. Benjamin, who was born in Pietermaritzburg and worked at the King George V Hospital at the same time as Haffejee, confirmed that she had been in a relationship with him but, because he had not taken their relationship seriously, she had “given him up to the Security Branch”.
https://capitalnewspapers.co.za/125952/haffejees-ex-i-was-the-snitch/
Other Media Reports
Families of COSAS 4 students to receive justice 39 years later
Pre-trial matters for the criminal case of former Vlakpas Askari Ephraim Mfalapitsa will get underway this morning in Johannesburg High Court. He has been charged with the murders of three young students known as the COSAS 4. Moray Hathon, Attorney for the COSAS 4 family has more on the case.
Government accused of dragging its feet in prosecuting aparthied-era crimes
27 August 2021: NewsRoomAfrika
Government has been accused of dragging its feet in prosecuting aparthied-era crimes handed over by the TRC. Preliminary hearings for the murders of the COSAS 4 will get underway in the High Court in Johannesburg this morning. The criminal case is expected to begin in October this year, almost 40 years since the students were murdered. Human rights lawyer and former TRC Commissioner, Yasmin Sooka, elaborates
#PODCAST Human Rights Lawyer Yasmin Sooka sheds light on the sacrifices made by activists in the apartheid era
3 September 2021: By Newsbreak Producer Rachel Vadi
