Forty-six years after Dr Hoosen Mia Haffajee died a torturous death when he was found hanging in his cell at Brighton Beach Police Station on August 3, 1977. The Pietermaritzburg High Court has offered closure to his family by ruling that his death was not suicide, as claimed by apartheid Security Forces.
Pietermaritzburg Judge Zaba Nkosi handed down a lengthy and detailed judgment on Wednesday, setting aside the original inquest findings of 1978 by Magistrate Trevor Blunden and recommending that those surviving officers involved in the death be charged by the National Prosecuting Authority.
He further attributed Hoosen’s cause of death to either a cardiac incident while under torture or a cardiac incident caused by ligature constriction applied by the Security Branch members “either while less conscious, unconscious, or debilitated after torture”.
Nkosi found that Hoosen did not die in the early morning but instead late on the night of August 2, 1977, most likely between 10:23pm and 11pm.
Haffajee was a dentist who died in police custody on August 3 1977, aged 26. The police, at the time, the police alleged that he had hung himself with his trousers from a grille door at Durban’s Brighton Beach Police Station.
In October 2017, a team from the Priority Crimes Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), led by Advocate Shubnum Singh, began an investigation into Haffajee’s death. In August 2019, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services formally requested the Judge President of the KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court to designate a judge to reopen Haffajee’s inquest.
The reopened inquest into the death in detention of Dr Haffajee ran from August 2021 until September 2021 at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
Judge Nkosi said the Security Branch officers primarily responsible for torturing and murdering Hoosen were Captain Petrus Lodewikus du Toit and Lieutenant James Brough Taylor.
He also named those who played various other roles in the interrogation, torture, and cover-up, whom Nkosi said must also be held accountable.
“They associated themselves with what happened to Hoosen and did not raise alarm,” Nkosi said.
These were: Commander of Security Branch Durban, Brigadier Steenkamp, second in charge, Colonel Ignatius Coetzee; Major Matheevathinee Benjamin (formerly Moonsamy); Lieutenant Vic MacPherson; Warrant Officer Shunmugam ‘Shcrewds’ Govender; Sergeant Veera Ragalulu Naidoo; and Mohan Deva Gopal.
Former SAP uniform branch members stationed at Brighton Beach Police Station who turned a blind eye and helped facilitate the cover-up include Constables Johannes Nicolaas Meyer, Derek Hugh Naude, and Shadrack Madlala.
However, Du Toit died in 2008, Taylor died in 2019, MacPherson died in 2017, and Benjamin died in 2010.
Except for Naidoo and Gopal, all other security members have either died or could not be traced. In SAP, only Madlala had died.
Nkosi recommended that certain charges be considered against Gopal and Naidoo. He recommended Gopal be charged with murder and possibly perjury, while further investigations were carried out to find out if Naidoo was present during the periods of Hoosen’s interrogation and death.
Nkosi recommended that Naude, Benjamin, and Meyer be investigated for perjury for providing multiple false statements to this court.
