"Biko, the founder of South Africa's Black Consciousness Movement, died in a prison cell in 1977 aged just 30, after being beaten into a coma by police who had arrested him nearly a month earlier. The death sparked outrage across the world and he became an international symbol of the struggle against the race-based apartheid system that denied South Africa's black majority political and economic rights."
"The main goal of reopening the inquest is to lay before the court evidence that will enable the court to make a finding as to whether the death was brought about by any act, or omission, which prima facie involves or amounts to an offence on the part of any person, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Wednesday."
"A 1977 inquest accepted the police account that Biko sustained injuries when he hit his head against the wall and no one was prosecuted for the death. But in 1997, former police officers implicated in the case admitted assaulting the activist during hearings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) into atrocities committed during the apartheid era. The TRC refused to grant amnesty to the officers, ruling that they lied in their evidence and failed to prove a political motive for killing Biko."
South African prosecutors will reopen the inquest into Steve Biko's 1977 death in police custody to determine whether any acts or omissions by individuals constitute criminal offences. Biko founded the Black Consciousness Movement and died in a prison cell at age 30 after police beat him into a coma following an arrest nearly a month earlier. The death provoked global outrage and made him an international symbol of resistance to apartheid's denial of political and economic rights to the black majority. A 1977 inquest accepted police claims that Biko injured himself; no prosecutions followed. In 1997 former officers admitted assaulting Biko before the TRC, which refused them amnesty.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]