Johannesburg – South Africa New inquiries will be made in the detention of iconic anti-apartheid figures in police custody in 1977 Steve BikoState prosecutors said Wednesday.
The investigation will be officially registered in court on Friday Bizi’s Death about half a century ago.
South African authorities have recently opened up new inquiry for other anti-apartheid leaders and activists who died in police detention or suspicious situations in the brutal apartheid system, despite their criticism for so long.
These include the Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Luthuli in 1967, the killing of attorney Griffiths Mxenge in 1981 and the killing of a group of activists known as Cradock Four in 1985.
Bizi At the forefront of the emergence of the Black Awareness movement South Africa In the 1960s, opposing apartheid.
In August 1977, he was arrested by the segregated security forces near the town of Grahamstown on the South Coast, and he was allegedly beaten and tortured at the police station, later in the police station, and later by the infamous police special department by the local police headquarters.
On September 11, 1977, after 20 days of detention, he was unconscious and drove into a police car and drove more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) to a prison hospital in Pretoria. The next day he died in a cell, still naked, with his legs shook. He is 30 years old.
Causes of death were recorded as brain injury and renal failure. An investigation later that year was covered up and found Bizi In a melee with the police, he bumped his head against the wall.
During apartheid, dozens of militants died in police custody, and inquiries at the time usually exempted any blaming security forces.
After the official end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa A Truth and Reconciliation Commission was held to attempt to investigate and expose the crimes of apartheid. Some police officers have been granted amnesty for their actions, but many are not.
However, in the years following the segregation, there were few people involved in homicide and other crimes, and the South African government has been criticized for allowing the case to slip away after successive segregation. President Cyril Ramaphosa announced an investigation into allegations that intend to block the investigation.
These men, known as Cradock Four, were believed to have been kidnapped, tortured and killed by police 40 years ago. New investigations into their deaths began in June, but police officers involved in the murders were all dead and not prosecuted.
It is not clear whether any police officers are involved Bizi’s Death is still alive. South Africa’s State prosecutors authorities say new investigation Bizi’s Death 48 years later is “an effort to resolve past atrocities and assist efforts to close Bizi Family and society as a whole. ”
Bizi Inspired the hit song by musician Peter Gabriel, which became the anti-apartheid anthem, starring actor Denzel Washington Bizi In the 1987 movie “Crying Freedom”.
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