The High Court in Pretoria delivered a judgment that Ahmed Timol did not commit suicide.
According to the court, Timol died after being tortured and pushed from a window by security branch police officers.
On Thursday, the court overturned a 40-year-old inquest ruling that endorsed the cops' version that Timol jumped to his death.
While Timol's death on 27 October, 1971, was ruled a suicide, a private investigation launched by the Timol family into his death uncovered new evidence which was presented to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
The NPA agreed to reopen an inquest conducted in 1972, which had ruled that Timol had killed himself and had not been brutally murdered by the apartheid security branch police while he was in detention.
The inquest, which was the first of its kind in recent years, began in June and completed its hearings in August.
