The reopened inquest into the death of anti-apartheid icon Chief Albert Luthuli began with startling revelations on Monday, as an investigator told the Pietermaritzburg High Court that official records related to the 1967 case had vanished from public archives.
Chief Luthuli, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president-general of the African National Congress (ANC), was reportedly struck by a goods train in Groutville in 1967—a conclusion drawn by an apartheid-era inquest. But new evidence, or rather the absence of it, is now raising serious doubts about that narrative.
The investigating officer, whose identity was not disclosed in court, said his efforts to trace the original police docket and inquest documents hit a dead end. “I went to the Kwadukuza Police Station and the magistrate’s court where the original inquest was held,” he testified. “No documents could be found.”
Instead, it was Luthuli’s family who eventually provided him with a copy of the case record, sourced from the Chief Albert Luthuli Museum archives.
However, even those records proved incomplete. The officer detailed several missing items: “Exhibit E – a rough sketch of the accident scene – had no diagram. Exhibit G, which supposedly contained four photographs of the Umvoti River Railway Bridge, had no photos attached. Exhibit J referred to a newspaper clipping of a train on the bridge – again, no clipping.”
The missing evidence has deepened suspicions surrounding the true circumstances of Luthuli’s death.
State prosecutors told the court that they believe the original investigators may have collaborated to obscure the real cause. They plan to call a medical expert who is expected to testify that Chief Luthuli's injuries were not consistent with being struck by a train.
Luthuli's family and senior ANC officials are expected to return to court on Tuesday as the high-profile inquest continues. Proceedings are scheduled to run until 16 May.