James MANGE, sentenced to death at the end of the recent ANC guerilla trial in Pietermaritzburg was on 20 January granted leave to appeal against sentence. The judge who approved the application was the same Mr Justice F Hefer who imposed the death sentence in November. He said he still regarded Mange's case as one of extreme treason but he thought there was a reasonable prospect of the Appeal Court coming to a different conclusion as to the appropriate sentence. Mange did not appeal against conviction.
Opposing the application, the state reiterated its support for the death sentence, saying that the accused had refused to take part in the trial.
For Mange, Sydney Kentridge argued that there was a great disparity between the sentences imposed in the trial. One of the accused, Tiaditsagae Molefe, had actually thrown a grenade at the police while Mange had not been convicted of any violence, yet Mange had been sentenced to hang while Molefe was jailed for 18 years.
Another of those convicted, Vusumuzi ZULU (sentenced to 13 years' plus one year for contempt) also applied for leave to appeal, on the grounds that the only evidence against him came from accomplices and was uncorroborated. The court had agreed that he was the least capable of the accused but leave to appeal was nevertheless refused by Justice Hefer.
