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.

But activists and his family had long cast doubt on the findings, and South Africa's government this year reopened inquests into the deaths of several political activists in the struggle against the white-minority apartheid regime, which was removed in 1994.

"It is found that the deceased died as a result of a fractured skull, cerebral haemorrhage and concussion of t

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