Nearly five decades after Steve Biko’s death, the reopening of his inquest was delayed again as his family sought more time to prepare after state funding was approved for their legal team.
The postponement comes as the revived proceedings seek to revisit the circumstances of the anti-apartheid activist’s death in custody in 1977, and to determine if any person’s actions or omissions amounted to a criminal offence.
The matter was called in the Gqeberha high court on Tuesday, but postponed to Wednesday after justice and constitutional development minister Mmamoloko Kubayi approved funding for legal representatives for the family.
Biko, the founder and leader of the Black Consciousness Movement, died after he was allegedly tortured by police.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced in September 2025 that the inquest into his death had been reopened.
Proceedings were set to commence on Tuesday, but Biko family lawyer Ngqiqo Sakhela filed an application for a postponement.
Sakhela argued that they needed time to prepare for the inquest following Kubayi’s funding approval.
Before the inquest was postponed last year, Sakhela said advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC was prepared to assist the Biko family pro bono.
However, he said this arrangement had become a “predicament” for the family since Ngcukaitobi was appointed to the Constitutional Court as an acting judge.
Due to a lack of funding, the legal team that was assembled last year had also since taken on other cases.
Sakhela said the family needed a team to be assembled and an opportunity to go through the voluminous documents.
Some of these documents, he said, were in Afrikaans and needed to be translated.
Sakhela submitted that this would be costly.
Another issue was that there were some documents missing from the 1977 inquest and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings.
Former apartheid spy Craig Williamson would also be required to testify.
Sakhela said Williamson was not initially named among the witnesses.
But because he testified during the Cradock Four inquest to having conducted surveillance on Biko, he said it was crucial for him to be subpoenaed.
Two surviving former police officers implicated in Biko’s death were also scheduled to testify.
During the TRC in 1997, former senior apartheid state police branch officers from Gqeberha — Major Harold Snyman, Captain Daniel Siebert, Captain Jacobus Beneche, Warrant Officer Rubin Marx and Sergeant Gideon Nieuwoudt — applied for amnesty in relation to Biko’s death.
According to the NPA, their version was that Biko had attacked one of their colleagues with a chair.
In the ensuing scuffle to restrain him, they claimed Biko hit his head against the wall.
They later admitted that they colluded and fabricated their versions by submitting false affidavits during the initial investigation into Biko’s death.
The TRC then refused all five of them amnesty because their evidence was contradictory.
Biko was arrested with his comrade, Peter Jones, at a roadblock near Makhanda on August 18 1977.
He had reportedly violated his “banning orders”, which restricted his movement to Qonce.
He was then taken to the Walmer police station where he was allegedly stripped naked and tortured while shackled with leg irons and kept in a cell.
It was only after 24 days in custody that medical assistance was sought for him after “foam” was noted around his mouth.
He was loaded, unconscious, still naked and shackled, into the back of a police vehicle on September 11 1977 and transported to a prison hospital in Pretoria 1,200km away.
He died outside a Pretoria hospital on September 12 1977 at the age of 30.
The cause of his death was recorded as extensive brain injury caused by centralisation of blood circulation and intravascular blood coagulation, acute kidney failure and uremia.
A formal inquest was held in November 1977.
The version of his captors and interrogators from the notorious police special branch at that inquest was that he had sustained his injuries when he banged his head against the wall.
The presiding officer accepted their version at the time.
The magistrate further exonerated the medical practitioners who treated Biko while in prison.
The then-Attorney General of the Eastern Cape also declined to prosecute anyone for Biko’s death on February 2 1978.
The NPA stated in September 2025 that the main goal of reopening the inquest was to lay before the court evidence that would enable the court to make a finding in terms of the Inquests Act as to whether the death was brought about by any act or omission, which prima facie involved or amounted to an offence on the part of any person.
This, the NPA said, was to continue their efforts to address the atrocities of the past and assist in providing closure to the Biko family and society at large.
State advocate Devendran Govender said they were not opposed to Tuesday’s postponement and that granting the application was in the interests of justice.
Retired judge Isaac Madondo will on Wednesday deliver his ruling on Sakhela’s application to postpone the proceedings further to give his clients an opportunity to prepare for the inquest.
Follow The Herald WhatsApp channel today and stay connected to the stories shaping our world.
The Herald
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.