Forensic evidence presented at the reopened inquest suggests Steve Biko suffered multiple injuries over several days, contradicting the apartheid police’s account of a single ‘scuffle’. The hearing also heard fresh evidence about what happened to Biko in custody before his death.
Apartheid police claimed Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko sustained his injuries during a “scuffle” with officers. But specialist forensic evidence presented on Tuesday during the reopening of the inquest into Biko’s death painted a starkly different picture, indicating that the anti-apartheid activist suffered repeated and extensive assault over an extended period.
Specialist forensic pathologist Dr Shakeera Holland said there was “no evidence” to indicate that the extensive injuries documented during Biko’s original autopsy were inflicted during a single incident.
Instead, the injuries had been inflicted at different times, with some sustained hours and others several days before Biko’s death on 12 September 1977. He was just 30 years old.
Holland, who heads the Forensic Medicine and Pathology Division at the University of the Witwatersrand and has conducted more than 5,000 autopsies, was assigned to review the original autopsy conducted by Dr Johann Loubser on 13 September 1977.
She meticulously took the inquest through Loubser’s findings, detailing the extent of the horrific injuries Biko sustained from his head to, quite literally, his feet.
The autopsy recorded multiple old and fresh open wounds, necrosis in parts of the brain, damage to the lungs, signs of kidney failure, abrasion to the skin, head injuries, a swollen brain and several small haemorrhages. Burns – which would have been painful to self-inflict – were also recorded.
Holland said some of the injuries were consistent with blunt-force trauma caused by an object such as a pipe.
On Monday, 31 August 2026, anti-apartheid activist Monde Mditshwa testified that apartheid police used a green hosepipe to assault detainees, which he said was nicknamed the “Green Mamba”.
Holland also identified “tramline scars” on parts of Biko’s body – patterned injuries resembling parallel railway tracks. She said these injuries were consistent with an assault involving a rod-shaped object. Under further questioning, Holland conceded that the injuries could also have been caused by being beaten with a hosepipe.
Holland concluded that Biko had suffered ongoing and repeated trauma to his head, which ultimately caused his death.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997, five former senior apartheid police officers – Major Harold Snyman, Captain Daniel Petrus Siebert, Captain Jacobus Johannes Oosthuysen Benecke, Warrant Officer Rubin Marx and Sergeant Gideon Johannes Nieuwoudt – applied for amnesty in relation to Biko’s death.
Their version was that Biko had attacked one of the officers with a chair after sitting down without permission.
They claimed that, during a “scuffle” to restrain him, Biko struck his head against a wall.
The officers later admitted that they had colluded to fabricate their accounts and had submitted false affidavits during the initial investigation into Biko’s death.
But Holland told the court that there was no consistency between this version and the pattern and varying ages of the injuries documented during Biko’s autopsy.
Her evidence indicated that the injuries could not have been sustained in a single incident.
Under further questioning, Holland agreed that the multiple injuries Biko suffered, including severe brain trauma, would have been inflicted over an extended period.
Biko was arrested by police near Makhanda, then known as Grahamstown, on 18 August 1977, along with Peter Jones, at a roadblock.
He was initially taken to Baakens Police Station, now the Walmer Police Station, before being transferred to the former apartheid security police headquarters in Central, Gqeberha. There, he was severely tortured.
Biko remained in the custody of security police as his condition deteriorated, but medical attention was not immediately sought. Apartheid police eventually sought medical assistance after noticing foam around his mouth.
On Monday, 31 August 2026, Dr Paul Hersch, the son of Dr Colin Hersch, testified that his late father’s recommendation that Biko be examined by a neurosurgeon had been ignored. Hersch senior had examined Biko, but did not treat him.
Hersch junior told the inquest that his father believed the outcome might have been different had his recommendation been followed and had he remained more closely involved in Biko’s treatment.
On 11 September 1977, apartheid police transported a naked and unconscious Biko in the back of a police vehicle to Pretoria, where he was taken to a prison hospital.
On Tuesday, 1 September 2026, retired police brigadier Livuhwani Alfred Netswera gave evidence about information he obtained from a former prisoner, Mohammad Moosa, who claimed to have been incarcerated with Steve Biko at Pretoria Central Prison.
Netswera never obtained an affidavit from Moosa, who, according to Netswera, told him that Biko had been assaulted in one of the cells.
Netswera testified that he interviewed Moosa in October 1996, during which Moosa told him that he had come to know Biko while they were dishing out food in the prison.
But the Biko family’s legal representative Ngqiqo Sakhela pointed to earlier evidence presented to the inquest in an affidavit by Gabriel Ndlovu. Ndlovu stated that when Biko arrived at the prison, he had bruising on his face, appeared to have been assaulted and was unable to speak.
Netswera, responding to Sakhela’s question about whether he had verified the information Moosa provided about Biko’s assault, could say only that Moosa had told him that Biko had been assaulted with knobkerries.
When Sakhela put it to Netswera that Biko had sustained his injuries and became “severely compromised” in the Eastern Cape and not in the Pretoria Central Prison, he had no response.
Netswera was again unable to provide an answer when Sakhela pointed out that Biko had been transported from Gqeberha to Pretoria on 11 September 1977, where he died the following day.
Sakhela put it to Netswera that, based on the evidence obtained from Ndlovu, it would not have been possible for Biko to cry loudly. Again, Netswera failed to give the inquest an answer.
Sakhela described Moosa’s evidence to Netswera, that he had seen Biko while dishing out food, as “not believable”. Sakhela said the evidence presented was “wrong and incorrect”. He told the inquest that the information that Netswera obtained from Moosa “must be treated with caution”.
No evidence is expected to be heard on Wednesday and Thursday.
Siebert and Benecke, who have been identified as persons of interest in Biko’s death, are expected to give evidence on Friday, 4 September and Monday, 7 September respectively.
Former apartheid spy Craig Williamson, who testified during the Cradock Four inquest that he had monitored Biko, is also expected to give evidence on Monday, 7 September. DM
Follow the story
