Sipho Mutsi dies in police custody

Date: 5 May 1985
Updated: 30 Sep 2019

Seventeen-year-old activist and leader of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Sipho Mutsi, died in police custody during interrogation at the Odendaalsrus prison. A lawyer, Richard Spoor, announced that a state autopsy showed that Mutsi had died of brain haemorrhage caused by a blow on top of his head. The minister of law and order, Louis le Grange, ordered an urgent probe into Mutsi's death.

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01(Coleman, M. (ed)(1998). A Crime Against Humanity: analysing the repression of the apartheid state, Johannesburg: Human Rights Committee, p. 245.)

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Sipho Mutsi dies in police custody. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012585

South African History Online (2011) 'Sipho Mutsi dies in police custody', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012585 (Accessed: 6 October 2026).

South African History Online, Sipho Mutsi dies in police custody [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012585, (accessed 6 October 2026).

"Sipho Mutsi dies in police custody." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012585. Accessed 6 Oct. 2026.

South African History Online. "Sipho Mutsi dies in police custody." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012585.