Inquest into deaths of anti-apartheid heroes to begin in PMB
Inquests into the deaths of anti-apartheid activists Chief Albert Luthuli and Griffiths Mxenge are expected to get underway in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday.
Lawyers will re-examine the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
Chief Luthuli, a former traditional leader from Groutville in KwaDukuza and then-president of the ANC, was reportedly struck by a train in 1967. His grandson Sandile Luthuli says the family always had doubts about how he died.
"It will never be easy. It's been 58 years since our grandfather died and, in that period, they would have been asking themselves what really happened.
"This inquest offers the opportunity for them to find closure, but it is not just a family matter. There's closure that is going to be found by his own organisation, the ANC, and the country."
Luthuli says they will be in court.
"We are hoping now that some of the evidence that was there going back to 1967 will be interrogated even more. They will be encouraged to get first-hand experience of testimonies, evidence [from] the witnesses that will be there."
In 1981, the body of Mxenge, a civil rights lawyer, was found on a field in Umlazi. He had suffered 45 lacerations. An inquest into his death in 1983 failed to identify the perpetrators.
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