New Delhi, Nov. 1 -- A new inquest into the 1967 death of South African Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-apartheid leader Albert Luthuli has found that he was beaten to death, and it rejected a previous finding that he died as a result of being hit by a train.

Thursday's judgment by a court in the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg came after more than 50 years of suspicion that Luthuli was killed by apartheid police because of his leadership of the African National Congress that opposed the system of white minority rule.

The South African government reopened an inquest into his death in April as part of a move to investigate high-profile apartheid-era killings that were allegedly covered up by authorities at the time.

A 1967 inquest ha...