An apartheid-era policeman accused of killing activist Ahmed Timol 47 years ago argued in court on Monday that the alleged crimes happened too long ago for him to stand trial. Joao Rodrigues, 80, who was in the police’s infamous security branch, is accused of murdering the anti-apartheid campaigner in detention in 1971 but is now seeking to suspend the prosecution. The Timol trial is seen as a test case for the families of other apartheid victims whose killers have not been brought to justice since 1994. Rodrigues briefly appeared in the Johannesburg high court on Monday where judge Ramarumo Monama, who did not consider the application lodged by Rodrigues’s legal team, set the trial date for January 28. Rodrigues claimed in court documents he is “seriously prejudiced by the fact that these proceedings are now instituted against me some 47 years later”. In the application to suspend his prosecution, Rodrigues reiterated he only participated “in the cover-up to conceal the crime of mu...
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