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Johannesburg – A former apartheid policeman appeared in court in South Africa on Monday accused of murdering a liberation activist, 47 years after the alleged murder .
Joao Rodrigues, is accused of murdering anti-white activist Ahmed Timol while he was in detention in 1971.
The decision to file a complaint against Rodrigues nearly five decades after Timol's death of the 10th Johannesburg police headquarters floor investigation that initially ruled on his suicide death.
Timol, 29, was arrested in Johannesburg in October 1971 and died five days later.
The officers said that he had committed suicide – a verdict that was approved by an investigation in 1972 but eventually overturned by a court in October after a decades-long campaign by his family.
Rodrigues, 80, is also charged with perjury and released on bail of 2,000 rand ($ 152, 130 euros).
"The High Court may impose sentences of up to life imprisonment," said the spokeswoman for the National Prosecution Authority, Phindi Mjonondwane,
.
In rendering his decision, the judge who had supervised the judicial inquiry had requested that proceedings be brought against Rodrigues, accused of helping to conceal the murder.
The historical case has revived the painful memories of the apartheid police. and led to new appeals to dozens of activists who died in police custody under the rule of the white minority.
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AFP
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