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Luthuli Museum in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal.
A police crime scene expert, Brenden Burgess, has identified several inconsistencies in the evidence contained in the first inquest into the death of the late ANC President, inkosi Albert Luthuli.
These inconsistencies include the direction the train was travelling in. He testified in the Pietermaritzburg High Court that there were also inconsistencies between the medical reports by the doctors who treated Luthuli after the accident and the post-mortem.
Burgess was part of the team that reconstructed the accident scene in the reopened inquest.
He further questioned the accuracy of the statement of the train driver, Stephanus Albertus Lategan, regarding Luthuli’s injuries.
“If I look at the injury patterns of the deceased, and I criticise it with the eyewitness account of Mr Lategan, I’ve seen no significant injury to the right hand side above the shoulder or on the shoulder,” testified Burgess.
“The only significant injury is the 9th rib fracture on the right hand side. I noticed that the driver Mr Lategan mentions the cab striking the deceased, Mr Luthuli on the right shoulder. However, when we looked at the train and we saw the video … the buffer beam on the front of the locomotive, as well as the cab at the back , if the locomotive was to have struck somebody it would have had to struck at the buffer and before striking on the cab. So, therefore, taking that likelihood, I then start to wonder and question the eyewitness account,” added Burgess.
The state is tomorrow expected to call its first witness in the re-opened inquest into the death of ANC leader, Chief Albert Luthuli in 1967.
The original apartheid era inquest had ruled that a train had accidentally knocked him down.
In its opening argument the state told the High Court in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal that experts examined the medical evidence, and also took part in the reconstruction of the scene.
Advocate Ncedile Dunywa said the aim was to highlight contradictions between medical and scientific evidence, and testimony in the original inquest.
Inquest into the death of Chief Albert Luthuli – 05 May 2025
