Grim recounting of scars, lesions and days of assaults

On Friday 7 February 2020 independent pathologist Dr Steve Naidoo resumed for a second day his detailed testimony at the inquest into the death of trade unionist Neil Aggett. He focused on visible injuries on Aggett’s body including four scars on Aggett’s back, a triangular lesion also on his upper back, a forearm lesion and an abrasion near the base of the spine.

Naidoo said the four scars were likely caused by “chronic frictional skin irritation”, but he referred to them as scars as they had had some time to heal.

He said the scars were unlikely to have been sustained while hanging against the prison bars where his body was discovered because the injuries did not match protrusions on the metal grill in the physician and unionist’s prison cell. 

Advocate Howard Varney, appearing on behalf of the Aggett family, referred to evidence by Liz Floyd, Aggett’s partner at the time he died, who is also a medical doctor, that she had not noticed the lesions and scars on Aggett before he went into detention. 

Naidoo, who has been commissioned by Aggett family’s attorneys, said the triangular abrasion was fresh and likely to have been caused by “some kind of pinching of the flesh and skin, close to the time of death”. The fifth abrasion, lower down the back near the spine, Naidoo said, could have been as a result of Aggett’s body being moved in the mortuary.

Varney restated Naidoo’s criticism from his testimony the previous day that Dr Vernon Kemp, the district surgeon who performed the autopsy, made inadequate notes of these wounds.

“It was a massive drawback,” Varney said, which Naidoo concurred was a “limitation”.

Varney also entered into evidence additional information that included a medical pathology report by Professor Johan Loubser, an SAP circular, and additional notes from Dr Jonathan Gluckman, a private pathologist linked to the original inquest.

Varney told the court that these are part of missing reports from the 1982 proceedings. That inquest found that Aggett died of suicidal hanging and no one could be held responsible for his death. His family have always disputed this and called for the reopening of the inquest that is taking place now, 38 years later.

Varney also read from Aggett’s own statement about how he had been assaulted in the days before he died.

Aggett’s statement tells how he was slapped, punched and assaulted. At one point he was slapped so hard he fell back against a table. He was also kicked and punched in the temple and was cut by the watch of someone he referred to as “this Schalk”. He was left bleeding from this cut and “this Schalk” had to leave to wash Aggett’s blood off himself.

Aggett also detailed how he was blindfolded, cuffed behind his back and subjected to electric shocks while he was kept awake at one point for about a 62-hour period between the “long weekend” of 28 January and 30 January. He had only about 14 hours rest in the 62-hour period – this took place five days before Aggett was found dead.

Naidoo testified that 14 hours over this period would have been “too little”. He added: “In that state one would still be able to do things that require muscular effort, but the time to exhaustion is reduced.”

Aggett had been made to do vigorous exercises in detention and Naidoo said repetitive bouts of exertion would have added to the burden of sleep deprivation and cumulative exhaustion.

He also described the effect of electric shock as “painful and would have caused sustained contractions of the muscles. It would be designed to be distressing and disabling but not fatal”, but he said it would have been possible for electric shocks to cause convulsions and fainting.

Naidoo also testified that a cloth bound over the area of the body where the shock was administered would have hidden marks of electric burns or other visible evidence.

Naidoo confirmed the “wide leg gait” that fellow detainee Jabu Ngwenya testified on how Aggett walked coming back from interrogations could have been from assault to his genitals. He said this wasn’t recorded in autopsy notes, but added that had Aggett endured injury to his genitals the pain would have been severe but would have passed quickly because of blood circulation to the genital area. 

“It would have been to demean, humiliate and emasculate,” Naidoo added. 

Turning to the actual hanging, Naidoo said he believed that in suicide cases people generally opt for the easiest way to kill themselves and successful hangings are not dependent on suspension of the body – people hang themselves from doorknobs and wardrobe railings, he said.

Aggett’s body was found hanged with a kikoi tied on the sixth bar in his cell. At 1.81m in height, Naidoo said Aggett would have had to “clamber up” to reach the sixth bar. In that position he would have also had to tie a knot, then placed the noose around his neck and also turn his body around while suspended – his body was found with his back against the bars and clear of the cell floor. A staging of a suicide in Aggett’s John Vorster Square police cell in the first week of the reopened inquest demonstrated the complicated steps Aggett would have had to take had he committed suicide.

In cross-examination of Naidoo, advocate Stephanus Coetzee said Naidoo had unfairly presented Dr Vernon Kemp, the district surgeon who performed the autopsy, as “sloppy”. He argued that records showed that Kemp did take instruction from his superiors and had permission from his seniors to remove Aggett’s body for autopsy. Coetzee also said Kemp’s professional conduct was in keeping with the standards and procedures acceptable the time.

It was pointed out that scrutiny of state pathologists and district surgeons was heightened at the time because of the sanction and criticism of the team that performed the post-mortem on activist Steve Biko when he died in detention on 12 September 1977. 

Coetzee asserted that had Aggett been determined to reach the sixth bar from which to hang himself it would not have been impossible, which Naidoo did not dispute.

He also questioned Naidoo on the injuries that Aggett documented. He said they were “not physically serious”, which Naidoo concurred were “not life-threatening”.

Coetzee also questioned why no signs of oxygen deprivation showed in Aggett’s body had this happened to him before his body was hanged against the bar.

Naidoo said such signs would not necessarily have shown up in the body if this had happened close to the time of death.

Coetzee said: “In pathology it seems anything is possible, but unless it is based in fact it remains speculation. 

“It seems in forensic science for every rule there is an exception and for every exception there is a rule,” he added.

Naidoo responded:

“In making a diagnosis the best we can do is to confidently exclude what we can exclude and narrow the focus to several possibilities and to put these in the best order of likelihood.” DM