Third book on Ahmed Timol almost complete

TOMORROW marks five years since Imtiaz Cajee took the stand in the reopening of the inquest into the death of his uncle, Ahmed Timol.

Cajee, who has been fighting for justice for apartheid era victims, is hard at work, writing a third book on the subject.

His latest is expected to be released by the end of this year and is once again a labour of love.

“A secret agreement between apartheid leaders and the Anc-led government that replaced it, effectively closed the door on post-truth and Reconciliation Commission prosecutions.

“The FW de Klerk Foundation issued a press release in June 2021 referring to this ‘agreement’ and urged the National Prosecuting Authority to halt all investigations.”

“The agreement, how it was struck and what it meant, is the focus of my latest book,” Cajee told the Pretoria News.

He said he had written an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa in November last year seeking answers, but nothing had been forthcoming.

Judge Billy Mothle, in his historic re-opened 2017 inquest, ruled that Timol did not commit suicide on October 27, 1971, by jumping to his death at the then-john Vorster Square Police Station, now Johannesburg Central Police Station.

The judge, sitting at the time at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, found Timol was murdered while in police detention.

Tomorrow, August 14, marks five years since Cajee testified at his uncle’s re-opened inquest – a day after his birthday.

The judge at the time remarked: “It is through the persistent effort of Mr Imtiaz Cajee that this historic sitting of the reopened inquest occurred. His efforts should be emulated as an example of how citizens have to assert their constitutional rights.”

Cajee recalled the painful day vividly when he took the stand during the reopening of the inquest. He also recalled his joy when the court found that the apartheid-era police officers who were implicated in Timol’s death more than 50 years ago should face the consequences.

Almost nine months after the verdict in July 2018, security police officer Joao Rodrigues was charged for the murder of Timol. On his own version of events, Rodrigues placed himself on the crime scene at both inquests.

Cajee wrote Timol – A Quest for Justice in 2005, a biography on his uncle.

In his second book, The Murder of Ahmed Timol, My Search for the Truth, published in 2020 during the peak of Covid, Cajee provides a detailed analysis of the 1972 and 2017 inquests. He puts to rest murmurings that his uncle was reckless during his underground operations leading to his arrest.