Luthuli had a hideout beneath his home, daughter tells inquest

The reopened inquest into the death of ANC president-general chief Albert Luthuli heard evidence he had a hideout underneath his Groutville home.

Luthuli used this secret place to hide from members of the apartheid police unit's special branch.

This evidence came from his daughter Dr Albertina Luthuli, 93, during the second day of  her testifying in the Pietermaritzburg high court on Tuesday. She told the court the hideout was also used to keep his important documents.

“Members of the special branch would just come and search the house, not knowing that there is a secret place underneath it,” she said.

Albertina said the members would come to their home almost every night during supper.

“They would come, ransack the house, they would go even to my father's bedroom and turn his bed upside-down,” she said, adding that the members of the special branch would not tell the family what they were looking for.

Albertina told the court her mother Nokukhanya Luthuli always thought her husband would be killed one day.

“One day, my mother told baba [my father] that it would be easy for his enemies to kill him because they knew his day-to-day routine,” she said.

Her father would wake up, do his chores, go to his shop, then the sugar cane fields and then go back to his house.

“Even my father was aware one day he would be killed, but as a deep Christian he was not afraid to die, especially for the cause of liberating people.”

Albertina said due to safety concerns her mother tasked a Mr Mabaso, who worked for her father on his farm, to act as his bodyguard.

Prosecutor advocate Annah Chuene asked Albertina if Mabaso was with her father on July 21 1967, the day he died.

Albertina said she was not sure, but from her understanding he was supposed to be with him.

The initial inquest conducted in 1967 concluded Luthuli died after he was struck by a goods train, a claim his family is disputing.

The inquest continues on Wednesday.

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