As the number of people sentenced to death for offences arising out of political protest rose to at least 60, the regime attempted to execute two of those already on Death Row. At the same time the Sharpeville Six were granted an indefinite stay of execution.
At the beginning of June it was reported that Paul Tefo SETLABA from Colesberg in the Karoo was due to be executed on 10 June. Setlaba was sentenced in Graaff Reinet in December 1986 for his alleged involvement in the killing of a suspected police informer.
Since his conviction Setlaba's lawyers had been seeking permission to appeal - this was finally refused shortly before the execution notice was issued. They had not yet submitted a petition for clemency to President Botha and on 9 June were granted a two month stay of execution by the Pretoria Supreme Court in order to do so.
Setlaba's trial was not reported in the national press at all - his death sentence was announced in January 1987 by the Bureau for Information.
Residents of Bongweni, one of Colesberg's three black townships, began in June 1985 to organise a protest at a rents rise they could not pay. There was 75 per cent unemployment and they relied on low wages from domestic and hotel work. The proposed increase even included a charge for electricity although the township had none. Nor was there water-borne sewerage.
The police acted quickly against this resistance in a previously quiet region and attacked residents with teargas, batons and birdshot. In early July there were eight deaths and 80 arrests as the township resisted the police occupation. Four of the dead were reportedly children suffocated by teargas, the youngest a two-week-old infant. The other casualties were youths, victims of a police ambush.
A consumer boycott was launched and remained firm in the face of police tactics which included the closure of shops exempt from the boycott - and on which the people relied for essential supplies - and the temporary cutting-off of the water supply to the township. Hotel owners assisted the police by withdrawing the usual monthly bonus paid to their workers.
Further detentions of community leaders in September failed to break the boycott but heightened tension in Bongweni. Evidence of police collaboration was mounting against a woman resident and she was attacked three times that month. On 2 October a crowd of youths again attacked her and she died later of her wounds. Three youths were convicted of her murder but only Setlaba was sentenced to death.
In July a stay was granted to Abraham MNGOMEZULU of Soweto whose execution was due to take place on 14 July. Mngomezulu was sentenced in November 1987 and had been refused leave to appeal by both the trial judge and the Bloemfontein Appeal Court. His lawyers were granted a stay (length unspecified) to petition Acting Chief Justice Rabie to overrule these decisions. They could also, if necessary, then petition President Botha for clemency.
The killing for which Mngomezulu was sentenced occurred in April 1987 during a stay-away in support of the rent boycott and in protest at evictions carried out by Soweto Council. A suspected informer held responsible for handing over a list of names to the police was killed by a group of youths.
As reported briefly in the last issue of FOCUS an application by the Sharpeville Six for a reopening of their trial was turned down in the Pretoria Supreme Court on 13 June. Justice Human refused them leave to appeal against his decision but granted a stay of execution until 19 July to enable them to petition Acting Chief Justice Rabie to overrule this refusal.
Human ruled that the court no longer has jurisdiction over a case once an appeal has failed. A provision in Section 327 of the Criminal Procedure Act, for the reopening of a trial to consider new evidence which has become available since an appeal, can only be authorised by the President.
On 5 July lawyers submitted a petition to Rabie seeking leave to appeal. At the same time Joseph Manete, the main state witness who had retracted his evidence, wrote letters to Botha and Rabie describing how he was threatened and assaulted at Krugersdorp police station.
A request for a further stay of execution to allow the Acting Chief Justice time to respond became unnecessary on 12 July when the Minister of Justice, Kobie Coetsee, announced an indefinite stay of execution to afford the Six 'the opportunity of exhausting the remedies which the law offers'.
However Coetsee also warned against 'arousing feelings for or against the prisoners'.
The regime seems to have gone on the offensive against international criticism of its judicial system. Articles in the press tried to shift attention from the Appeal Court judgment that described the Six as guilty through 'common purpose' and to highlight the original trial judgment that related the role of each accused to the fatal attack on Councillor Dlamini.
It is therefore necessary to reiterate the fact that the weak case against the Six depended almost exclusively on the evidence of state witnesses who had been detained. At the original trial numerous independent witnesses - Dlamini's neighbours in particular - gave evidence which directly contradicted the accounts by the state witnesses. The contradictions were sufficiently comprehensive, covering matters of substance as well as incidental points, to cast grave doubt on the accuracy of the state's case.
Five Appeal Court judges were due to hear argument by defence lawyers in support of their petition to the Acting Chief Justice on 7 September.
Some new death sentences have been reported.
In May the Natal Supreme Court sitting in Stanger sentenced to death an ANC member convicted of killing a suspected informer in May 1987.
Mandla MNGOMEZULU (25), from Ingwavuma in the Kwazulu bantustan, said he was arrested in Swaziland. In 1986 he underwent military training in Angola and then returned to Ingwavuma in the Kwazulu bantustan where he and someone named only as 'Jabulani' recruited people to the ANC and hid arms. Mngomezulu, who was also sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for 'terrorism', applied for leave to appeal against the court's finding that there were no extenuating circumstances.
In July the Pretoria Supreme Court granted two Nelspruit men leave to appeal against their conviction and death sentence for a murder committed in June 1986. Elliot Malindana NKUNA (37) and Mpande Joseph MAH-LALELA (30) were accused of being in a crowd which killed Mike Mpapane on 7 June. Justice Kriegler granted the defence leave to lead further evidence in mitigation. Two witnesses were to be called along with Dr Donald Foster, head of the University of Cape Town's Psychology Department and an expert on 'mob psychosis'.
