Expert testimony suggests foul play in Albert Luthuli's death

INKOSI Albert Luthuli was possibly assaulted in the vicinity of the Mvoti River in Groutville, Stanger, before assailants carried him on to the railway bridge where they hastily left him, thinking he was dead, when they saw a train approaching.

- BONGANI HANS

This was the expert opinion of Warrant Officer Sunette Nel in the Pietermaritzburg High Court when she was testifying yesterday at the reopened inquest into the Nobel Peace Prize recipient's death.

"The size of a blunt force trauma, such as the bruises, the lacerations, and fractures on the back of the head, arms, and hands, indicated that Chief Albert Luthuli was trying to protect himself as he was most likely to be assaulted," said Nel.

She presented to the court gory pictures of someone, not Luthuli, with a partially decapitated body, limbs sustained during a train accident, which were not similar to those sustained by Luthuli. She was demonstrating what injuries someone hit by a train would look like.