# PRISONS ## RELEASES
Two prisoners held at Pretoria Central were released, one in September last year and the other in December. Newspaper reports indicated that two others had also been freed, on unspecified dates.
- Derek HANEKOM (33) was released from Pretoria Central at the end of September on completion of a two-year sentence. He was convicted of possessing literature of an unlawful organisation. His co-defendants were Roland Hunter, a member of the SADF's Directorate of Special Tasks, who was jailed for five years, and Patricia Hanekom, who received a sentence of three years and two months.
- Renfrew CHRISTIE (36) was released from Pretoria Central on 30 November after serving six years of an effective 10-year sentence imposed under the Terrorism Act in 1980. He was convicted on five counts of 'terrorism', reduced to four on appeal in 1981. These concerned the passing of information to the ANC about the apartheid regime's nuclear energy programme, especially its power plant at Koeberg. In November last year Christie applied to the Pretoria Supreme Court for release on the grounds that he accepted an offer of freedom made to prisoners who renounced violence. The State President made the offer in his address to parliament in January 1985. Before the court reached a decision the Prison Release Board ordered Christie's release. He gave assurances that he would not 'make himself guilty of planning, instigating or committing acts of violence for the furtherance of political objectives.'
- Zolile Goodwill MONI (31) of Cape Town was one of 16 PAC members convicted under the Terrorism Act in the Bethal Circuit Court in June 1979. He was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and spent his term on Robben Island. The precise date of his release is not known but it appears that he was not released early.
- Masabata Mary LOATE (28) was killed in Soweto in October following her earlier release from prison. She was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in March 1982 under the Terrorism Act for her involvement with the South African Youth Revolutionary Council, which was formed after the disbanding of the Soweto Students Representative Council in 1979. She was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the government by violent means and recruiting youths for military training. The date of her release is also not known.
HUNGER STRIKES
On 8 January the Prisons Service confirmed press and radio reports that Jeff MASEMOLA (56) had been on a hunger strike in the Johannesburg Prison, where he is serving a life sentence. They said that it had lasted for 32 days but that he was 'no longer on hunger strike.' Previously the Prisons Service had referred to his action as a 'so-called hunger strike.' It denied that he was refusing all food and liquids or that his health had seriously deteriorated, as some reports had suggested. The nature of the 'several demands' made by Masemola when he began his strike was not reported. Shortly after the end of his hunger strike his 80-year-old sister called for his release. He told journalists: 'I wish the authorities could answer my prayers and release him so that he can spend my last days with me.' Since 1984 Masemola has been campaigning for the release of himself and John Nkosi, the other PAC member serving a life sentence who was convicted and sentenced with him in June 1963 on a charge of conspiring to commit sabotage. In a letter to the Minister of Justice in April 1984 Masemola and Nkosi wrote: 'According to the latest parliamentary decision political prisoners are serving on the same terms as common law prisoners. In the case of the latter, life sentence is from nine to 15 years. On the strength of this, will you consider parole and release us since we have served 20 years?' Four other PAC members who were also sentenced in 1963 to life imprisonment were released in February 1985. According to the Minister of Justice at the time they accepted the conditional offer of release made in January during the State President's address to parliament, although they later disputed this.
# OTHER TRIALS ## DURBAN GRENADE TRIALS
Three cases heard in Durban courts (one of which is reported in COMPLETED TRIALS under PEARCE) involved charges arising from the possession and use of hand grenades.
- Two youths were each jailed for seven years after being convicted of 'terrorism' on 18 December in the Regional Court. Vincent Churchill JAMES (18) and an unnamed youth from Austerville aged 17 pleaded guilty and no evidence against them was heard. They admitted throwing two grenades into the house of a head teacher at Wentworth last April.
- Protas TAULA (19) and Patrick MAKHAYE (21) appeared in the Durban Magistrates' Court on 7 January charged under the Arms and Ammunition Act, alternatively the Explosives Act, with possessing a hand grenade last June. They were released on bail of R1,000 and were due to appear again on 15 January.
CAPE JAIL SENTENCES
In the Western Cape four prison sentences were imposed on youths convicted of acts of popular resistance.
- Three Paarl youths were convicted of sabotage after burning down a plastics factory at Oudtshoorn last July. In mitigation they and a fourth accused, an unnamed boy aged 15, said that they had burnt the factory for 'political reasons' because they were 'opposed to apartheid and supported the objectives of the African National Congress.' Michael FRANS (22) was jailed for eight years, Johannes Altau BOESAK (19) for seven years and Donavan SAAYMAN (19) for four years. The 15-year-old had his five-year sentence suspended for five years.
- In the Parow Regional Court at the end of November an unnamed youth aged 17 was jailed for three years after being convicted of stoning two vehicles at Bonteheuwel last April. The vehicles were carrying fencing to a local school. Four other accused persons, all aged 18, were acquitted.
- An unnamed school pupil from Kenilworth aged 17 was convicted in the Wynberg Regional Court of possessing a petrol bomb last June. Sentence was postponed to 26 January pending a probation officer's report.
- Four members of Black Sash were convicted in the East London Magistrates' Court of gathering illegally outside the City Hall in May last year. They were fined R150, suspended for three years. They had been demonstrating against the detention of Duncan Village community leaders.
1,400 WORKERS IN COURT
Ten hearings involving more than 1,400 trade unionists were reported. Most arose from strike action taken in 1985 and 1986 and all but two of them were in the Transvaal. The case against 16 General Motors workers who appeared in the Port Elizabeth Magistrates' Court on charges of illegal gathering during their strike of last November was postponed to 24 February. An appeal by five Metal and Allied Workers Union shop stewards from the BTR-Sarmco factory in Natal against conviction and fines for 'intimidation' during the strike in 1985 was successful. The Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court decided on 27 November that the Howick magistrate had dismissed defence evidence too casually.
A successful appeal against conviction and sentence was made in the Transvaal by an official and 240 members of the South African Allied Workers' Union. In 1985 they had been fined for attending an illegal gathering while picketing the Continental China factory at Rosslyn in protest against victimisation of strikers. The Pretoria Supreme Court described the evidence against them as 'scant and questionable.'
However, five Federal Council members of the Retail and Allied Workers Union who were fined R450 in 1985 for offences committed while picketing Edgas Stores, failed in their application to the Bloemfontein Appeal Court to obtain leave to appeal against conviction and sentence.
In the trials arising from last year's disputes in the Transvaal, half of the 1,100 workers concerned were hospital workers, who were members of the General and Allied Workers Union and the South African Municipal Workers Union. Charges of trespass were brought against 356 workers, mostly women, employed at the J G Strijdom Hospital in Johannesburg after they refused to accept dismissal. A special court was held in the cells on 19 November, but charges were dropped a week later.
Considerable press attention focused on the Odendaalsrus Magistrates' Court where charges of attempted murder, attempted rape and robbery against 11 NUM members were dropped in December. They were said to have attacked a female supervisor at the Geduld gold mine at Welkom last September after accusing her of being a 'sell-out'. Eight of those freed were women. The case against nine other NUM members appearing on the same charges was resumed on 7 January, when the small courtroom was crowded with mine workers expressing their support for the nine accused: Shepherd MOLUSE (28), Damo MAKONE (46), Moriti CHEMANE (31), Dingityebo MBANJWA (23), Sofonia SENEKANE (40), Tefo MORAKA (40), Mawanga NTYAPI (28), Fusi MATHE (22) and Zwelabo GAZU (32).
MZIZI AND SHABANGU
Nellie MZIZI, the mother of a youth killed by the police, appeared in the Sebokeng Magistrates' Court on a charge of arson. She was released on bail the day before the funeral of her son Leonard Jabulani MZIZI (18), who was shot dead by a special police unit on 15 November. On the day before his death police had beaten her husband while they were interrogating him. They wanted to know where Leonard was because they thought he had thrown some stones at the windows of a house in Sebokeng.
The second defendant, Fana SHABANGU, was refused bail, but an appeal against this was allowed in the Regional Court in December. Bail was set at R500. The hearing was due to resume in January.
