The many politically-related trials before the courts in the third quarter of 1988 reflected a high level of community resistance. Many of the cases were notable for the youthfulness of the defendants.
There have been a large number of trials of people arising out of the killing of members of the police force.
In August, two men from KwaZakhele in Port Elizabeth, Tebogo MEHLO (18) and Tabo MAHLANA (23), were convicted in the Port Elizabeth Supreme Court of the murder of a policeman, Gcobane Tungata.
According to evidence, the policeman's burnt body was found on 8 September 1985. This was a time of intense repression of popular resistance in KwaZakhele and the whole Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage area. From the end of March 1985 there was a virtually permanent police and SADF presence in the townships. Police 'unrest reports' make it clear that there were almost daily confrontations between KwaZakhele residents and the police and army. Moreover, by the time of the incident a consumer boycott affecting the whole area had been in force for two months.
Mehlo and Mahlana were arrested two days later and appeared in June 1986 with 11 others. By the time of the Supreme Court hearing, charges against the other defendants appear to have been withdrawn.
During the trial both defendants said they had been assaulted whilst in custody and forced to make statements. They said, in particular, they had been beaten by a Sergeant Faku of the Security Branch who hit them with a baton. They said that they were sjambokked across the back by Sergeant Tungata, a Security Branch officer who was also a brother of the dead policeman, and who took part in the investigation. Mehlo testified that he made a statement only because Sergeant Tungata had threatened to kill his parents and burn down their house. The court, however, ruled their statements admissible.
In response to the court's decision the defendants decided to plead guilty with extenuating circumstances. In written statements, they asked the court to take into account their age at the time (Mehlo was 17 and Mahlana 20) and the fact that they had been drinking. Intoxication is frequently accepted by the courts as an extenuating circumstance, thus mitigating an otherwise mandatory death sentence. Their pleas were accepted. Mehlo received a 14-year term and Mahlana was sentenced to 12 years.
Their allegations of assault were consistent with previous reports of police violence in the area at the time. In March 1985, members of Black Sash reported witnessing similar assaults in a police station in the Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage area. In evidence given by Dr Wendy Orr to the international conference on Children, Repression and the Law in Apartheid South Africa held in Harare in September 1987, she cited an affidavit by someone detained in Port Elizabeth in July 1985 - he described being lashed and beaten by members of the Security Branch. One of the policemen was named Faku, although it is not clear if this was the same officer who featured in the assault on Mehlo and Mahlana.
Of the reported trials still continuing in October 1988, at least 10 related to the killings of policemen.
Five youths (including three under the age of 18) appeared in the Port Elizabeth Supreme Court in May charged with the murder of a policeman and another man in New Brighton in July 1985. In June evidence was heard in the Grahamstown Supreme Court in a case against three youths accused of killing a policeman in September 1985. In July six Motherwell men aged between 21 and 28 were sent for trial in the Supreme Court by a Port Elizabeth magistrate, charged with the murder of a policeman in August 1985.
