Someone to Blame

This film is about the historic precedent-setting inquest into the death of Ahmed Timol, the 29-year old Roodepoort school teacher and political activist who was said to have committed suicide by jumping out of the 10th floor of the former John Vorster Square Police Station (now Johannesburg Police Station) on 27 October 1971. The original sham of an inquest held on 22 June 1972 returned a verdict that there was no living person responsible for his death despite overwhelming evidence of gruesome torture. The Roodepoort teachers did not believe Timol had jumped from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square while being interrogated by Security Police. They believed he was either tortured to death and then thrown from the window or pushed. 45 years later riveting testimony was heard in two courts of how former political detainees were tortured, therefore proving conclusively that Ahmed Timol was tortured. Expert witnesses steadily built up a case to expose the weaknesses of the first inquest. Security Police including the last person to be with Ahmed Timol when he ‘jumped’ are found, will they talk or remain silent? The Timol family finally hoped to get answers. Playing out to a riveted national audience the inquest gripped the nation.