Questions about Dr Neil Aggett's death in detention his partner would like answers to

As one-by-one she pointed out apparent discrepancies in the police’s 1982 pictures and version of how Dr Neil Aggett died, it became apparent that Dr Elizabeth Floyd, who was Aggett’s then girlfriend, had conducted her own intense probe into his death.

“I believe he died in the hands of the security police and he was hanged thereafter,” Floyd told the High Court in Johannesburg during the fresh inquest into Aggett’s death.

Aggett, a trade union organiser and medical doctor who had dated Floyd since their university days, was found dead in a cell at John Vorster Square police station in February 1982. He was the first white person to die in police detention under the custody of the security branch.

Officers who had arrested and interrogated him during his 70-day incarceration had alleged that he had hung himself – a claim Aggett’s family dispute.

Floyd’s medical background, sewing experience, excellent photographic memory and drawing skills were laid out in the court on Thursday, as she gave a reasoning as to why the police’s version that Aggett committed suicide did not make sense.

The first discrepancy came from what she saw on Aggett’s body when she went to view it at the government mortuary in Hillbrow days after his death.

“There were no visible marks on his neck,” she said.

Aggett had been placed on a trolley in a well-lit room, with his head positioned in such a way that she would be able to see any injuries he had sustained, Floyd said. Besides the post mortem scar, she said she saw no injuries or bruising around his neck, which was inconsistent with someone who would have hung himself.

Fanus Coetzee, representing the police in the inquest, asked Floyd whether it was not possible that Aggett had make-up on to hide the bruising on his neck. Floyd shot down  this claim, saying if Aggett would have had make-up on, it would have been done at the undertakers. He was still at the mortuary at this point and make-up did not fall within their scope of work.

Floyd had, through a drawing, tried to replicate the police’s picture she had previously seen of Aggett hanging from the cell bars.

Police had alleged that he had hung himself using a kikoi - a piece of material used as a wrap, sling, scarf or sarong. Kenyan men wore it around their waists and Aggett, who was of Kenyan origin, usually wore it in this fashion. Floyd, however, said the police’s pictures showed that the kikoi he had hung himself with was “wrapped loosely over Neil’s neck like a thick winter scarf”. For it to kill him, it would have needed to have been tightly noosed around his neck.

Floyd said after Aggett’s death, police had called her to take his items. These included the clothes that he had died in and the kikoi. Police had reportedly cut it, as they removed Aggett’s body off the bars he was hanging from.

Floyd said the cuts on the kikoi were strange. “The way it had been cut looked like a skilled dressmaker had cut it on a table with some sharp scissors. It was cut in an arch ... The cutting of the cloth looked far too neat ... When they say they cut him down, there was no way it would have come out that clean, especially because of the weight [of his lifeless body]. If there was weight, it would have been very jagged. From one cut to the next, as the weight changes, it would have been jagged,” she said.

She had experience working with material. She said the kikoi looked so new it still had folds in it. There was nothing suggesting it had been tied into a knot, she added.

Unfortunately, Floyd could no longer provide the kikoi to the court. She had given it back to their friend, Yvette Breytenbach, who had gifted it to Aggett. The court had heard that Breytenbach had since disposed of it. She has since emigrated and had expressed that she did not wish to be part of the inquest.

While the police’s pictures came in black and white, the cloth that was seen hanging around Aggett’s neck appeared to be a light single colour – either a white or light blue. The kikoi that Aggett had was a bright blue with thick white stripes, similar to the Greece flag. Floyd told the court that the contrast would have been evident in the police pictures, even on a black and white photograph.

Floyd said during the first inquest, the police had said Aggett had died wearing blue slippers. He never owned a pair before. A picture she had seen in the Sunday Times of Aggett hanging from his cell, however, had shown how he was apparently dressed in tan formal shoes that contained a double sole. The slippers and tan shoes were among some of the items of Aggett’s she received back from the police. She was convinced the slippers were new or had barely been used because of how they had bent forward, showing they had hardly stretched to accommodate the foot.

Floyd said she in 2018, along with a private investigator, had again looked at the picture taken of Aggett after his death. She also noticed how the navy sweatshirt he had been wearing with his jeans had folds in the middle. “The folds made it look like he had been lifted up [and put onto the noose],” she said.

Floyd said she had not given this information at the first inquest in 1982, shortly after Aggett’s death. She said she had been severely traumatised and had battled to even look at the pictures to study them.

Like the Aggett family, she hoped this fresh inquest would give answers as to exactly how Aggett died.