The inquest into Albert Luthuli's death: A family's search for truth

IOL News

06-06-2025

A reopened inquest into Inkosi Albert Luthuli's death on July 21, 1967, is being held at the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
Image: Supplied
The National Archives Advisory Council chairperson, Sibongile Mnyandu-Nzimande, described at the inquest into Inkosi Albert Luthuli's death this week how her father died heartbroken because of her uncle's disappearance without a trace at a young age after being kidnapped by apartheid police.
Mnyandu-Nzimande, who was born in 1957, said police kidnapped her uncle after he had witnessed white men assaulting Luthuli at the Umvoti River railway bridge, Groutville, outside Stanger in the north coast on the morning of July 21, 1967.
She was testifying at the reopened inquest, which the National Prosecuting Authority established to dispel findings of an initial inquest held in 1967, shortly before Luthuli's death from injuries a few hours after being brought to the Stanger Provincial Hospital.
The initial inquiry has concluded that Luthuli had died after being hit by a goods steam train through his failure to avoid it while walking on the bridge, and that there was no one to be held accountable.
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She said she was never told about the name of her kidnapped uncle, although her father said his parents and siblings loved him.
The former head of the Department of Arts and Culture said her father, Phothwayo Barnabus Mnyandu, had succeeded her grandfather, Thomas Mnyandu, to be traditional leader at La Mercy on the north coast.
'My father lived and died with a heavy heart from the disappearance of his brother at the hands of the police.'
She said years before his death, his father, Mnyandu, who was the last born among Thomas's children, told the family about the disappearance of his brother, which also left her grandfather heartbroken until his death.
Mnyandu-Nzimande said she was told that there was no case opened about her uncle's disappearance, and it was seldom talked about as the family feared that should they do that, they would face police brutality.
'It was a deep, cutting feeling of helplessness and despair as the family feared losing more lives at the hands of the police.
'This may also be because at the time, which was in the 1960s, the police were seen as a symbol of authority who could do no wrong in upholding the law in its purest form.
'When the police had committed a wrong, even as deep as killing a relative, the fear of consequences (when reporting it) was palpable.'
She said it was when she was an adult and working that her father shared with her the story of how her uncle disappeared.
The story started with her uncle delivering a letter from her grandfather to Luthuli using a bicycle.
She said before being taken away by the police, the uncle told the family that on his arrival at Luthuli's home, he was told that Luthuli was working at his sugarcane field.
As he proceeded to the fields, he witnessed a group of white men assaulting Luthuli with a shovel near a goods steam train that was stationed on a bridge.
She said her father told her that her uncle reported that after witnessing the attack on Luthuli, he fled on realising that the assailants had seen him and reported to her grandfather what he witnessed.
'The word soon spread that the police were looking for him, and he was advised to go into hiding, though I believe the effort was not well planned.
'Hiding completely was nearly impossible because the community was scarcely populated and everyone knew one another, and the possession of a bicycle at the time was a glaring fact, and people would have known who had a bicycle,' said Mnyandu-Nzimande.
She said a few days later, some community members told the family that they had seen the police walking with her uncle toward the Tongaat Police Station.
'Even today, he had never been found nor did the police ever come back to report what happened to him despite my grandfather being induna and well known in the area,' she said.
She said she was not certain of the date of her grandfather's death, but her father died at the age of 94 in 2018.