In an unprecedented move the SA Minister of Police Mr Kruger announced in Parliament on 11 June that four security police officers were to be charged with the manslaughter of Mr Joseph Mdluli, who died in police custody on 19 March and was alleged to have been part of an ANC recruiting ring in Natal. No names were given.
This followed weeks of pressure both by and on behalf of Mdluli's widow in an attempt to make the police disclose how Mdluli died. In May the Minister of Police said that the cause of death was not suicide, but no date was fixed for a public inquest, despite many demands that the case be treated with urgency.
Early in May Mrs Lydia Mdluli instructed her lawyers to sue the Minister of Police and the Commissioner of Police for damages of R25,000 arising out of her husband's death, which she claimed was due to "unlawful act or acts of one or more members of the Security Branch police acting in the course and within the scope of their employment as members of the police force and thereby as servants of the state."
On 13 May at a meeting in London chaired by Canon L. John Collins, president of the International Defence & Aid Fund, the ANC released photos of Mdluli's body, apparently taken in the mortuary, showing extensive injury and bruising. The ANC claimed Mdluli had been tortured to death. The photos were taken by Durban undertaker Mr Harris Peters at Mrs Mdluli's request.
