CAPE TOWN – A court in Johannesburg, on Wednesday, blocked the auction of anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko’s original autopsy documents.
Biko’s son, Nkosinathi Biko, had expressed anger at the auctioning of the documents by Westgate Walding Auctioneers.
He said the bidding on the autopsy was meant to start at 7,000 dollars.
Biko said his family and the Steve Biko Foundation had filed an urgent application opposing the auction of the documents, which included certificates from pathologists and the post-mortem report.
Steve Biko founded the Black Consciousness Movement which mobilised the struggle against apartheid.
After being arrested on Aug. 18, 1977, he was repeatedly tortured in prison and he died in a prison cell in Pretoria on Sept. 12.
The incident sent shock waves around the world but after a 15-day inquest in 1978, a judge found that there was no enough evidence to charge the police with murder because there were no eyewitnesses.
However, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which was tasked with investigating apartheid-era atrocities rejected the amnesty applications of five former members of the South African security forces who admitted killing Biko.
In 2003, the South African justice ministry announced that the killers would not be prosecuted because the time limit for prosecution had elapsed and because there was insufficient evidence. (PANA/NAN)