Two musicians, Joseph CHARLES (24) and Rufus RADEBE (19) have had their sentences reduced after appealing. They were both sentenced in the Johannesburg Regional Court on 2 June 1983 to four years imprisonment for singing 'revolutionary songs'. The sentences were reduced to 17 months, eight and half of which were suspended for five years. Pretoria Supreme Court judges accepted that the trial magistrate had overemphasised the seriousness of the musicians' interest in promoting the ANC.
The long-running trial of William DUNA (31), Dumisani MANINJWA (34), Jeffrey Bay, KEYE (52) and Luyanda MAYEKISO (33) in the Ciskei Supreme Court has been postponed to 13 August for the hearing of pleas in mitigation. Duna, Maninjwa and Mayekiso were found guilty on the main charge of participating in 'terrorist activities' and of being members of the ANC. Keye was found not guilty on the 'terrorism' charge but guilty of participating in ANC activities. On the charge of possession of banned literature, Maninjwa was found guilty and the others not guilty.
On 8 March Father Smangaliso MKHATSHWA, a Catholic priest and General Secretary of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, was acquitted in the Zwelitsha Regional Court of charges under the Ciskei National Security Act. Fr. Mkhatshwa was detained on 30 October 1983 and was charged on 10 February with subversion, incitement to public violence and addressing an unlawful gathering. The charges relate to his attendance last October at a church service at Fort Hare University held in sympathy with students killed at the University of Zululand by members of Inkatha, the organisation led by Chief Gatsha Buthelezi, the chief minister of the KwaZulu bantustan. The State's case collapsed when a key witness, Nako MOSALA, a former student, changed his testimony and said Fr. Mkhatshwa had appealed to students to remain calm and not to resort to violence. Mosala asked the court to disregard an earlier statement which, he said, had been extracted from him when he was naked and under extreme duress. The magistrate ruled that Mosala's statement was not admissible as evidence and found that the State had failed to prove a prima facie case on any of the three charges.
Two separate trials in the Venda bantustan area have seen, in the one case, the first conviction for high treason in the bantustan and in the second, the bantustan's most prominent poet facing charges under the Terrorism Act. In the first trial a subsistence farmer, Petrus MUDZIELWANA (46), was sentenced on 6 March to an effective eight months' imprisonment in the Thohoyandou Supreme Court. He was sentenced for giving food to guerillas. In the other case, Robert RATSHITANGA faces charges under the Terrorism Act of harbouring guerillas. When he appeared in the Sibasa Regional Court on 7 March one witness only, a former detainee turned state witness, was summoned to testify for the state and at the end of the trial the magistrate reserved judgement.
Thembinkosi Paulson NGCOBO appeared in the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court. He pleaded guilty to seven charges relating to three explosions, three attempted bombings and the establishment of an arms cache. The blasts took place in 1983 at the College Road Supreme Court, at the administration board offices in Sobantu Village and at an electricity pylon in Pietermaritzburg. The sentences for the seven charges totalled 100 years imprisonment but as they are to run concurrently the effective sentence is 20 years.
The case of Thomson RAMANALA (25) was reported in FOCUS 50. He was charged with being in possession of undesirable publications and furthering the aims of the ANC. Ramanala was found guilty of this charge when he appeared in the Pretoria Regional Court on 30 January.
United Democratic Front leader, Albertina SISULU (66), was sentenced to four years imprisonment – two years suspended for five years – on 24 February in the Krugersdorp Regional Court. Thami MALI (25), a schoolteacher, was sentenced to five years imprisonment in the same trial. Both were charged with 'furthering the aims of the ANC', to which they pleaded not guilty. The case arose out of the attendance by the two at a funeral at which they were alleged to have sung 'ANC songs', distributed pamphlets and stickers, displayed the 'ANC flag', praised the ANC and draped the deceased person's coffin with an ANC flag.
On 20 February Dieter GERHARDT and Ruth GERHARDT (41) were refused leave to appeal by the Cape Town Supreme Court against their conviction and sentence. The couple have now petitioned the Chief Justice for permission to appeal against their conviction and sentences.
