The long-delayed trial of eleven people accused of beating and burning a woman suspected of being an informer in July 1985 has opened in the Pretoria Supreme Court. They are charged with the murder of Rosaline Maki Skhosana at a mass funeral at Duduza of four people who were said to have been killed by police near her home after she had informed on them.
The accused include a 15 year old girl named in one press report as Priscilla MOREME, a 15 year old boy (the only defendant to have been denied bail) and a 23 year old woman, Lydia MOKOENA, whose doctor insisted that she be allowed to bring her six day old baby to court because it was being breastfed.
The remaining defendants are three women - Matlakala Elizabeth MOTAUNG (27), Sannah TWALA (22) and Loraine Zanela SOBUZI (31) - and five men: Solomon MOTSOAGAE (28), Linda Alexander HLOPHE (26), Jacob TSHA-BALALA (21), Phineas MASEKO (31) and Daniel MBOKWANE (21).
They learned of the State's decision to charge them with murder as long ago as 23 July last year, but it was only on 11 March that the trial began in the Pretoria Supreme Court.
When the State proposed to show a South African Broadcasting Corporation video film of Skhosana's death the defence objected. They disputed its originality, authenticity and accuracy, because it was an edited version of film taken by two separate cameras which 'could distort the sequence of events.' The judge ruled that 'as long as it was relevant to the case' the video material was admissible - despite 'the inherent dangers'.
Under cross-examination a State witness who had attended the funeral and who had implicated three of the accused in Skhosana's death admitted that he and others who had been detained for questioning within three days of the incident had been deprived of food and beaten with samboks and batons by uniformed white men at the Dunnottar police station on 23 July. 'We were made to stand in lines and lean forward and beaten severely on the back. We were all crying.' A woman who had been struck in the eye with the butt of a firearm was bleeding and screaming. 'When they were taken to a cell those already in custody said that the police had refused them food.'
The policeman in charge testified that he did not investigate bruises on Sobuzi's face or complaints of assault made by the accused youth because he did not believe that policemen were responsible. He also denied pushing a torch into Mbokwane's mouth with such force that it cracked his teeth.
Five of the accused admitted kicking and assaulting the dead woman, but all eleven have pleaded not guilty to murder.
