A South African hero for antipartheid is confident in pursuits

The son of the prominent South African antiparteid activist Steve Biko told the BBC that the family was confident that a new investigation into his death 48 years ago would lead to the criminal prosecution of the responsible ones.

Considered as a martyr in the fight against the rule of white minority, the founder of the Black Consciousness movement was killed by brain trauma at the age of 30 almost a month after being arrested for road blocking.

At that time, police said he had hit his head in a wall, but after Apartheid ended in 1994, former employees admitted that they were attacked – although no one was persecuted.

Nkosinathi Biko, who was six years old when his father died, said the country could not move forward without turning to his violent past.

“In our minds it is very clear what happened and how they killed Steve Biko,” he told the BBC after the first hearing was held at the Supreme Court in the southern city of GQEBERHA – on the 48th anniversary of his father’s death.

It is alleged that Biko, who was the subject of a “ban order” that restricted movements and other activities during his arrest in 1977, was tortured by five police officers while in custody.

“What is required by this process is simply to follow the facts and we have no doubt that the democratic court in a democratic state will find that the murder of Steve Biko was an act organized and executed by those who were with him – the five police officers who were involved in this case,” his son said.

On Friday, the referee heard that two people related to the case remain alive, and they are both now 80.

The death of Biko caused outrage in South Africa and was the subject of Hollywood film freedom of the 1987 film with the participation of Denzel Washington.

He was a medical student at the University of Natal when he founded the movement of black consciousness aimed at empowering and mobilizing the urban black population.

He was determined to fight the psychological inferiority that many black South Africans experienced after years of governing a white minority and at a time when antipartheid activists such as Nelson Mandela were silent and devoid of regime.

The new investigation comes five months after President Cyril Ramafosa has announced a A judicial investigation of allegations of political intervention in the pursuit of crimes of the Apartheid eraS

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established in 1996, revealed the Apartheid era atrocities as murder and torture, but few of these cases progressed to a lawsuit.

Biko’s case was heard in TRC, where the participating police acknowledged that they had made false statements 20 years earlier, but they were not persecuted.

“The accounting for our violence, the brutal past is something that escaped from South African society,” said Nkinati Biko.

“You cannot carry out the trauma we had, blood flow on the streets, orchestrated by a country against a nation, and then go out with less than a handful of persecution that is ever done successfully.”

He said that families who feel misled by the lack of persecution recommended by TRC continue to press the government for justice.

“You can’t root for democracy without dealing with some of the historical issues decisively,” he said.

The case was postponed until November 12.