Decades later, court says Luthuli was murdered

The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) High Court in Pietermaritzburg has ruled that the death of ANC stalwart chief Albert Luthuli was a murder, overturning the decades-old finding that it was an accident.

- Molefe Seeletsa

WELCOME. ANC president Albert Luthuli waves to well-wishers with his wife, Nokukhanya, in Oslo, Norway, on 9 December 1961, when he came to receive the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize.

(Picture Getty Images)

The judgment was delivered yesterday following closing arguments heard two weeks earlier.

The inquest was reopened in April this year by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

Luthuli died on 21 July, 1967 at the age of 58. The initial inquest at the time found his death to have been accidental.

According to that ruling, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was hit by a freight train while crossing the Umvoti River railway bridge, sustaining fatal injuries including a skull fracture, brain contusion and cerebral haemorrhage.