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HomeMedico-LegalApartheid era dentist Dr Hoosen Haffejee ‘did not kill himself’ inquest hears

Apartheid era dentist Dr Hoosen Haffejee ‘did not kill himself’ inquest hears

The third day of the inquest into the 1977 death of anti-apartheid activist and dentist Dr Hoosen Haffejee (26) saw three witnesses take the stand at the KwaZulu-Natal High Court (Pietermaritzburg) last week, to detail why he could not have committed suicide.

Haffejee was accused of being a terrorist by the Apartheid security branch policemen, Lieutenant James Brough Taylor and Captain Petrus Lodewikus du Toit. Taylor and the others implicated in the interrogation have died, according to the evidence presented on Tuesday by police officer Warrant Officer Frank Kgamanyane, who was assigned to investigate in 2018.

The Pietermaritzburg street the Brighton Police Station is located on, is named after Dr Hoosen Haffejee.

A Cape Argus report says first on the stand was Thivash Moodley, an aeronautical engineer. Moodley took almost an hour to break down to Judge ZP Nkosi the improbability of Haffejee committing suicide, given the position in which he had been found in his cell. Moodley said that after a series of mathematical calculations they established whether, from 400mm off the ground, a person could actually suspend themselves until death, or in a case of suffocation, in which the method of suffocation is strangulation, a person could strangle themselves from that position or if there were a third person involved in the strangulation.

He said that they had measured the cell door and taken all the relevant dimensions and concluded that Haffejee was a mere 400mm from the ground when his body was found. He added that upon visiting the Brighton Beach Police Station cell in which Haffejee’s lifeless body was found, they could see that there were several other places that he could have used to also hang or suspend himself, such as the higher parts of the door and the three windows that were available.

“But it was weird that a person would choose the lowest bar of the door which is probably the least likely height that you would be able to strangle yourself from; I mean even the bar higher would give you a lot more suspension when you hang from it.”

The report notes Haffejee’s last surviving siblings, his sister Sarah Bibi Lall and brother Ismail Haffejee, also took to the stand to share why they believed that their brother did not commit suicide, and the impact his death had on the family.

 

Cape Argus article (Pressreader) –Hafejee ‘did not kill himself (Open access)

 

Daily Maverick article – Family’s interminable fight for justice for Dr Hoosen Haffajee overshadowed by protracted NPA investigations (Open access)

 

See more from MedicalBrief archives:

 

Statistics SA: How South Africans die

 

Alleged Tshwane police assault on pulmonologist condemned

 

SA doctor who emigrated to escape crime, brutally killed in Canada

 

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