Nel has conducted a simulation of the scene in the re-opened inquest into Luthuli's 1967 death. He died after allegedly being hit by a goods in the town of Groutville, in the country’s train in KwaZulu-Natal province. The current inquest seeks to overturn the findings of the original apartheid era probe in 1967. Nel has dismissed the version of the train driver, Stephanus Albertus Lategan, who said Luthuli was hit by the train.

“If the deceased fell between the right side of the bridge towards a moving train, he would have fallen across towards the railway line. The deceased was found on the railway, the deceased was there just after the railway line. There would have been very limited space between the burial and the moving train. If the deceased was chopped by the train in a manner that was described, the deceased would have fallen between the wagons and the tankers of the train. The expected injuries on the body of the deceased would have been severe, to the extent that it would have not been found in one piece,” Nel said.

--SABC--