S.Africa court rules ANC leader Luthuli was killed in apartheid 'assault'

The leader of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC), Albert Luthuli, poses 15 December 1961 in Oslo with a silver replica of a Viking ship, which was offered to him by Norwegian unionists.[AFP]

A South African court ruled Thursday that the 1967 death of ANC leader and Nobel prize winner Albert Luthuli was due to "assault" by apartheid policemen, overturning a finding that he was struck by a train.

A formal inquest by the apartheid government claimed in 1967 that Luthuli -- who in 1960 became the first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize -- had died after being hit by a goods train while walking on a railway line.