Unveiling the truth: Albert Luthuli's funeral as a symbol of resistance

IOL News

20-05-2025

A reopened inquest into Inkosi Albert Luthuli's death on July 21, 1967, is being held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
Image: Independent Media Archives
Pictures of Inkosi Albert Luthuli's body lying emotionless in a coffin during his funeral on July 30, 1967, depicted nothing of a person hit by a train, as it had no dismembered limbs or facial scars, the inquest held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court heard.
Luthuli, a staunch Christian and prayer warrior, was buried eight days after his death on July 21, the same year. His funeral, attended by scores of people from various racial groups, was held at the Groutville Congregational Church Graveyard.
The pictures of his body dressed in a black suit and tie in the coffin were shown on a big screen in the courtroom on Monday during the ongoing reopened inquest.
They were another piece of evidence to reject the 1967 findings that he was killed by injuries sustained from being hit by a steam goods train that was running at 40km/h.
Testifying on Tuesday, Thulani Thusi, a heritage educator at the museum named after the iconic ANC president-general and Nobel Peace Prize winner, concurred with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA)'s evidence leader, Advocate Annah Chuene, that the elderly man's body, which had grey hair and a beard, appeared intact.
'I see an individual in a casket or a coffin whose body is intact, in other words, there are no missing limbs or any body parts from what I am seeing. Are you seeing the same thing?
'Looking at the facial features of the individual whom you say is Chief Albert Luthuli, on his face, there are no available scars from what I can see on the screen. 'Is that what you also see?' Chuene asked, to which Thusi responded, 'That is correct, my Lady'.
According to evidence accepted by the initial inquest held on September 21, 1967, Luthuli met with the accident at the Mvoti railway bridge at Groutville village in Stanger, the north coast, in the morning.
He died at the Stanger Provincial Hospital in the afternoon.
It was revealed that before the accident, on that fateful morning, he woke up to take his normal daily routine of going to open his general deal shop, and proceeded to his sugar cane fields using the same route he always used, which was to cross the bridge.
Police officers and a medical expert who testified in the current inquest said it was a fallacy that Luthuli died as a result of the train accident.
Instead, they presented documented medical evidence that the injuries indicated that he had been attacked and assaulted until he lost consciousness.
According to KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health's senior forensic pathologist, Dr Sibusiso Johannes Nsele, who testified last week about his findings after reinvestigating medical reports, Luthuli's injuries on the arms indicated that he was trying to protect himself from his attackers.
Nsele believed that during the assault with a blunt object, Luthuli lost consciousness, which might have led the attackers to believe that he was dead.
They then carried him to the bridge to create a false impression that he had been hit by the train.
In his sworn statement, Thusi said one of the newspapers, which covered the funeral that was held on a Sunday, described the event as 'a theatre for defiance and political dynamism' because of its unusual attendance under the situation created by the apartheid regime.
According to the Albert Luthuli Timeline published on the University of Pretoria website, his funeral was attended by over 7 000 people and 'was the first major public gathering since the ANC's banning in 1960'.
Describing the funeral, Thusi said the articles that were produced after the funeral reflected what happened at that event.
'This was a day that brought multiracial groups to the funeral of Chief Luthuli,' said Thusi.
He said, according to the archives and people who attended the funeral, the funeral was under the watchful eye of the police and special branch members.
The NPA's aim of reopening the inquest into Luthuli's death was to provide evidence that would expose collusion between the security police, district surgeons, pathologists, prosecutors, and magistrate CI Boswell, who presided over the initial inquest, in covering up the killing and protecting the killers from being held accountable.
Meanwhile, the reopened inquest was initially scheduled to run between April 14 and May 16, but its completion was delayed due to postponements as a result of court officials, including presiding Judge Qondeni Radebe, having to deal with other work-related commitments.
On Tuesday, it was postponed to Wednesday because the next witness to give evidence did not show up in court. It remained unclear when these hearings would be completed.
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