Two appeals against the death sentence were reported on 8 January to have been dismissed. CHONILE SHUMA (previously reported in FOCUS as JEMILE SHUMBA), aged about 30 and the vice-secretary of the Gwavamuntangwi Jindu branch of the Nkomo ANC, had been sentenced to death by a Special Court in Gwelo in September 1976 for laying landmines and failing to report guerillas. Shuma, a resident of the Chingoma area of the Belingwe TTL south of Gwelo, had been found not guilty of another charge of supplying food and water and giving directions to a guerilla group.
ENOCH VERA, (or ENOCH VERA KIZITO) who was sentenced to death by a Special Court in September 1976, also lost his appeal in January. Vera, who had been vice-chairman of the youth branch of the Muzorewa ANC in the Sinoia district, was convicted of recruiting or encouraging 5 other people to undergo guerilla training.
On 24 February, the 10 year prison sentence imposed in October 1976 on the Rt. Rev. DONAL LAMONT, Roman Catholic Bishop of Umtali, was reduced to 4 years, 3 years of which were suspended. The Bishop had been convicted on 4 counts, to which he pleaded guilty, of failing to report the presence of guerillas at the Avila Mission in eastern Rhodesia, and inciting a nun to do the same. Following an initial appearance before the Appeal Court on 14 February, judgement was deferred for 10 days due, according to the Chief Justice, to pressure of work on the court. Within hours of the Appeal Court's final decision, however, it was learnt that the regime's President, Mr. John Wrathall, had issued a "condition of respite" to prevent the Bishop being jailed. The regime further announced that it was taking measures to revoke his Rhodesian citizenship and to deport him, a process expected to take about a month. During this time he would be restricted to St. Anne's Roman Catholic Hospital in Salisbury, where he had been receiving treatment for back injuries incurred in a car crash. (Bishop Lamont was born in Ireland but has lived in Rhodesia for 30 years.) Informing the House of Assembly of this decision, the Minister of Justice, Law and Order, Mr. Hilary Squires, said that the regime had "no intention of giving him a special position in prison where he might pose as a martyr." It had acted "to remove him entirely from the local scene where his presence in prison, we are convinced, will serve only to continue to make him the focal point of tension."
