Selewe Peter "Billy" Mothle (born 24 July 1956) is a South African judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal.
[1] He matriculated in 1974 at Pretoria's Mamelodi High School and enrolled in legal study at the University of the North, but he was excluded after the 1976 Soweto uprising.
During his year in the United States, he was a summer associate at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in Washington D. C., and he also completed a diploma through the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.
[1] Upon his return to South Africa, he resumed his legal practice and also served as national director of Lawyers for Human Rights between 1988 and 1992.
[1] In November 2010, President Jacob Zuma announced that he would appoint Mothle permanently to the bench of the Gauteng High Court with effect from 1 January 2011.
[7][8] Perhaps most prominently, in 2017, he presided over the reopening of the inquest into the death of Ahmed Timol, an anti-apartheid activist who died in 1971 at John Vorster Square.
[9][10] Mothle overturned the apartheid-era inquest in finding that Timol had not committed suicide but had been tortured and murdered by members of the Security Branch.
[13] Mothle told the Judicial Service Commission panel that he had applied for the vacancy because he wanted to end his career at a higher court when he retired in five years.