Former security branch police sergeant Joao Jan Rodrigues, 79, who stands accused of involvement in the murder of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol is expected to appear in the South Gauteng High Court on Tuesday.

Timol was a school teacher in Roodepoort who fought against apartheid. He was arrested at a roadblock in October 1971 and is said to have fallen to his death five days later.

The then security branch alleged that Timol, 29, fell to his death from a window on the 10th floor of John Vorster Square prison, now the Johannesburg Central police station.

For more than four decades the circumstances surrounding his death remained a mystery. Timol's nephew Imtiaz Cajee was instrumental in the reopening of the inquest into his uncle's death last year.

In October 2017, 47 years after his death, the North Gauteng High Court found that the apartheid activist did not commit suicide but was murdered.

"Judge Billy Mothle found that Timol did not meet his death because he committed suicide but that he died as result of having been pushed to fall, an act which was committed by members of the security branch with dolus eventualis as a form of intent, and prima facie amounting to murder," News24 reported at the time.

Rodrigues, who is facing charges of murder and defeating the ends of justice, will be attending a pre-trial conference that aims to resolve all legal issue before the trial into the death of the anti-apartheid activist begins.