Forensic examination points to repeated beatings of Steve Biko
A forensic examination presented during the reopened inquiry into the circumstances of South African activist Steve Biko’s death at the Gqeberha High Court indicates that he sustained numerous injuries at different times, rather than during a single incident with police. This was reported by Daily Maverick, citing testimony from forensic pathologist Shakira Holland.
According to Holland, the original autopsy records contain no evidence that all of Biko’s injuries were inflicted during one altercation. Some injuries occurred several hours, while others occurred several days before the activist’s death on September 12, 1977. He was 30 years old at the time of his death.
Injuries from different times
The autopsy recorded old and fresh open wounds, necrosis in certain areas of the brain, lung damage, signs of kidney failure, abrasions, head injuries, brain swelling, and several small hemorrhages. Burns were also recorded. Holland said that some injuries were consistent with blows from a blunt object, such as a pipe.
The expert also identified stripe-like marks on the body — parallel injuries that may be consistent with blows from a rod-shaped object. During further questioning, she agreed that such injuries could also have been caused by beatings with a hose. The previous day, activist Monde Mditshwa testified that apartheid police used a green hose, called the “Green Mamba,” to beat detainees.
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The police version and forensic findings
According to South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, five former senior apartheid police officials applied for amnesty in the Biko death case in 1997. They claimed that the activist attacked one of the officers with a chair and, during the struggle to restrain him, hit his head against a wall.
These police officers later admitted that they had coordinated their accounts and submitted false affidavits during the initial investigation into Biko’s death. Holland noted that the version involving one incident does not correspond with the nature of the injuries and the different times at which they were inflicted, as recorded during the autopsy. In her conclusion, Biko sustained prolonged and repeated head injuries that ultimately caused his death.
Biko was detained on August 18, 1977, near Makhanda together with Peter Jones. He was initially taken to Baakens police station and then to the former headquarters of the apartheid security police in central Gqeberha. On September 11, an unconscious and naked Biko was transported in the back of a police vehicle to Pretoria, where he died in a prison hospital the following day.
