A three-month jail sentence imposed on Rev. David Russell in February for refusing to tell a magistrate the names of the persons who gave eye-witness accounts of the police acts which were published in "The Role of the Riot Police in the Burnings and Killings, Nyanga, Cape Town. Christmas 1976", was set aside on appeal in the Cape Town Supreme Court on 20 August.
The judges found that the answers sought from Rev. Russell by the magistrate were not material to the arson allegedly committed by the police. Russell's failure to give the answers did not give the magistrate jurisdiction to sentence him, the judge ruled.
