SANLAM building Port Elizabeth and Walmer Road Police Cells

Before his death, Stephen Bantu Biko was detained and tortured in these buildings in Port Elizabeth. The SANLAM building in Port Elizabeth housed the offices of the security police and served as an interrogation centre. From there he was taken to a police cell at the Walmer Police Station and then to the Rooihell prison in North End before being transported naked in the back of a police van. A plaque at the back of the Walmer police station records the brief facts of his detention there. Other political detainees known to have died in detention at the SANLAM building, including Mr George Botha who was alleged to have jumped down a stairwell on 15 December 1976; and Mr Lungile Tabalaza who allegedly jumped out of a fifth floor window on 10 July 1978. A large number of other detainees died in Port Elizabeth from the 1960s to the 1980s. More detailed research is needed to identify all those security police claimed to have committed suicide, died of natural causes or died of accidents in the SANLAM building.