On Tuesday, Joao Rodrigues, the apartheid-era security police officer charged with the murder of activist Ahmed Timol in 1971, died.
He was 82 years old.
Timol died on October 27 1971 when he fell from the 10th floor of the security branch offices in John Vorster Square, Johannesburg.
At the time, in line with its modus operandi, the brutal apartheid administration claimed his death was a suicide.
After years of agitation by his family, an inquest into his death was reopened in 2017.
The following year, high court judge Billy Mothle ruled what many knew already – Timol was killed.
Rodrigues was subsequently charged with his murder.
Unrepentant, Rodrigues sought a permanent stay from prosecution, claiming that with over four decades since the crime, he would not get a fair trial.
With his pleas to higher courts dismissed, Rodrigues had pinned his last hope to evade accountability on the Constitutional Court, which is yet to hear the matter.
Regardless of that outcome, it means he cannot be held accountable for the pain he inflicted on generations of families of those he and his ilk murdered.
Importantly, his death means that his victims may never know the whole truth about his despicable crimes.
While we welcome the move by the Hawks and National Prosecuting Authority in June to boost their capacity to investigate and prosecute apartheid era crimes, for many families it was too little too late.
Their loved ones, who were murdered by the racist regime, continue to be celebrated as national heroes, yet at the crux of it, even in our democratic dispensation, justice was never served.
For many others, time is running out as perpetrators and witnesses with valuable information continue to die before their cases can even be heard, let alone concluded.
Ours is a nation of families whose bare scars of torture and loss were at the hands of apartheid operatives.
Despite their consistent efforts to get justice, the ruling elite has over many years demonstrated no political will to ensure they find answers.
Rodrigues’s death is yet another important reminder of how our government continues to fail its historic mission to deliver justice for those who paid the ultimate price for our democracy.
It is a crying shame.
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