Doctors centre of new Biko inquiry

Press, 2 July 1985, Page 10

Doctors centre of new Biko inquiry

NZPA-Reuter Johannesburg A new inquiry into the gruesome death in detention of a black leader, Steve Biko, which prompted an international outcry and a United Nations arms embargo against South Africa, opens in Pretoria today. A South African Court has ordered the country’s medical watchdog body to hold a full disciplinary inquiry into whether two doctors acted improperly in their treatment of Biko eight years ago. The Pretoria Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that there was prima facie evidence of misconduct by Port Elizabeth district surgeons, Ivor Lang and Benja-

min Tucker, who treated Biko before his death at the age of 30 in September, 1977.

The Court’s decision to force the South African Medical and Dental Council to reopen investigations followed an application by six eminent doctors who said the Biko case had stained the reputation of the country’s medical profession.

The Court also set aside a council resolution confirming a preliminary inquiry ruling that there was no prima facie evidence against the doctors. Harrowing descriptions of Biko’s death that emerged at an inquest soon after and

the Government’s initial attitude shocked many South Africans and the world.

Jimmy Kruger, then the Government Minister responsible for the police and prisons, announced at first that Biko’s death was due to a hunger strike According to evidence at the inquest, Biko was chained hand and foot for most of two days to a grille in a security police office and later driven naked 1200 km in the back of a van from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria, where he died of head injuries. The inquest found that Biko died of brain damage but that no-one was criminally responsible.