Two men from Zwide township, Port Elizabeth, were each sentenced to five years imprisonment by a Port Elizabeth regional magistrate on 2 October 1980. Mlungisi Elliot SOMNGCUKA (22) and Monde Dugmore JOHNSON (23) were both found guilty under the Terrorism Act of having unlawfully consented to undergo military training outside South Africa between May and July 1980. The case of Thamba MTSELU (28), who appeared with the two accused but unlike them pleaded not guilty, was postponed.
Somngcuka (also spelt SOMANGAMBA) and Johnson were arrested in Montshwa, BophuthaTswana after travelling there by train from Port Elizabeth, en route to Botswana.
B.P. Loots, regional magistrate, said that he was compelled to sentence the two men to a minimum of five years. If it was in his power, he would have given them a shorter term of imprisonment. He further said that he would make a point of seeing that they received lenient treatment in prison, including the opportunity to continue their studies. Their cooperative attitude, he said, was "rare and unique".
A former clerk in the Transkei civil service, Thembile MAGINGXA (21), was sentenced to an effective term of one year's imprisonment in October by the Umtata regional court. He was found guilty on three counts — two under the Transkei Public Security Act and one under the Transkei Constitution Act — of preparing and distributing three sets of pamphlets deemed expressive of sentiments of hatred against the Transkei regime. The anonymous pamphlets, found in the Mount Frere and Qumbu districts in October 1979, were said to have described Transkei officials as SA government stooges and to have encouraged a boycott of the Transkei independence celebrations.
Magingxa, a member of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, was detained in the Transkei in late 1979/early 1980. He appeared in the Umtata Magistrate's Court with three others on 23 January 1980, on charges under the Transkei Public Security Act, and was remanded in custody until February 11. In April however, he was reported to be seriously ill from the effects of a hunger strike and to have been admitted to Umtata General Hospital under police guard.
Magingxa's father had died while he was in detention, but he had been refused bail to attend the funeral.
Zoyisle (William) NELANI (46) was also reported in October to be facing similar charges in the Transkei Supreme Court.
The trial of Bingo Mbonjeni BENTLEY (46) and Archibald Monty MZINYATHI (24) was concluded in the Johannesburg Regional Court on 9 October, more than a year after charges were laid under the Terrorism Act. Mzinyathi, as Soweto, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on conviction of returning to South Africa as an ANC guerilla after undergoing military training in the USSR. Bentley, a well-known Eldorado Park actor and Mzinyathi's step-father, was acquitted of harbouring him on his return to South Africa in 1978.
Mzinyati's defence counsel had asked for the minimum mandatory prison sentence of five years, on the grounds that convicted guerillas were given "a tough time in jail".
Two of the seven young men from the Durban area charged under the Terrorism Act with planning to go for military training were convicted in the Durban Regional Court in October after a year-long trial. Mandla James SIBISI (20) and a 16 year-old youth were each sentenced to five years imprisonment. Five others - Njengabantu SITHOLE (21), Ramatlotlo MOSES (21), Christopher Sitembiso NZUZA (20), a 17 year-old youth and a 16-year-old, were acquitted.
The president of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), Ephraim MOGALE (23), and a former student of the University of the North, Thabo MAKUNYANE (24), were each sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Pietersburg Regional Court on 17 October. They were convicted under the Terrorism Act of furthering the aims of the ANC and of communism. Makunyane, who is a member of the Black Arts Council, was also sentenced to two months on each of two counts of possessing subversive literature, the three sentences to run concurrently.
The two students were alleged to have recruited youths into the ANC and to have formed youth clubs with the aim of preparing for an uprising.
