Three members of the ANC were sentenced to long prison terms in the Pretoria Regional Court on 10 November after pleading guilty to charges of terrorism. Damian DE LANGE (31), Ian ROBERTSON (36) and Susan WESTCOTT (25) were detained in May 1988 in possession of armaments including a SAM-7 surface-to-air missile. A fourth person picked up with them, Hugh LUGG, admitted in a newspaper interview after the conviction that he had given police information leading to their arrest. Lugg was held as a potential state witness but was never called to give evidence as the other three pleaded guilty. He was released in June 1989.
When they first appeared in court in January 1989, the three faced a main charge of terrorism and 25 other charges, including attempted murder arising from a bomb attack on a South African Air Force bus in Benoni in March 1988. In June Westcott pleaded guilty to ten charges of terrorism, Robertson to 11 and de Lange to 11 charges of terrorism, one of arson and two of attempted arson. All other charges were withdrawn. The remainder of the trial was given over to evidence in mitigation of sentence, to which the prosecution responded with its own experts. One of these, General Herman Stadler, now head of the SAP Public Relations Division in Pretoria, admitted that while in the Security Branch he had co-ordinated the SADF raid into Botswana in June 1985 which killed 12 people including a six-year-old child.
The arson offences admitted by de Lange occurred before he left the country in 1981. They were part of a protest against the Republic Day anniversary celebrations carried out by him and Marion Sparg, who was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for treason in 1986. Robertson left South Africa in the late 1970s and underwent military training in 1985. The two of them returned in July 1987. Westcott (previously referred to as Donnelly) is a British citizen who was born and brought up in Swaziland. She was sentenced to 18 years while Robertson received 20 years and de Lange 25 years.
In November three alleged ANC combatants and three supporters of the armed struggle were forcibly dragged from a Potchefstroom court by riot police after being imprisoned for terrorism. Fighting broke out when Kedibone Angelina MOGOTSI, a 44 year old widow, was manhandled and prevented from saying goodbye to her children. In spite of the distance of the trial's venue from the Vaal area and the stringent in camera restrictions under which much of it was held, Vaal township residents turned out in force to support the accused, all but one of whom hailed from the area. A seventh defendant Emmah MADZIKANE (34), who had spent a year in detention with her 18-month-old daughter, was convicted on a lesser charge and given a wholly suspended sentence.
Evidence against the accused came from 10 state witnesses who were held in detention prior to giving 'satisfactory' testimony. Statements made by two defendants, Putswe Jacob LITLHAKANYANE (19) and Thembisile Jackson BATYI (23), both alleged combatants, were contested by the defence, who said they were obtained after assault and electric shock torture by the security police. The magistrate nevertheless 'provisionally' accepted the statements of the two accused. Then, together with Lawrence Tumelo SELEKOE (19), they refused to recognise the court any longer.
No weapons were found either with the accused at the time of their arrest or at any of the places allegedly 'pointed out' to police by them. However, videos of them pointing out and dismantling and re-assembling an AK-47 rifle were admitted as evidence. Lithhakanyane, Batyi and Selekoe were all convicted of undergoing military training abroad and returning to South Africa in 1988 under instructions from the ANC. They allegedly intended to attack police and military officers as well as the mayor of the Lekoa Town Council, and to disrupt the October 1988 municipal elections and the threatened execution of Vaal residents, the Sharpeville Six. The three were each sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.
Mogotsi, Edward Rakomang MOTUBATSI (29) and Saul Andrew TSOTETSI (35) were convicted of helping people to leave the country for military training by providing funds and transport for them. Mogotsi, with Madzikane, was also said to have accommodated combatants. One news report described Lithhakanyane as Madzikane's younger brother. Motubatisi, believed to have been active in the Vaal Residents Association and a former detainee, was imprisoned for an effective two years while Mogotsi received an effective four year term. Tsotetsi, a former fieldworker with the Witwatersrand Council of Churches who served a six-year sentence imposed under the Terrorism Act in 1978 while he was still a student, was sentenced to 10 years.
Two ANC combatants who refused to participate in their trial because they had 'no say in drawing up the legislation' and could not get a fair trial from an apartheid court, were convicted of terrorism and imprisoned by the Protea Regional Court on 24 November. Obed Selukwanda MADONSELA (23) and Christopher KHUMALO (27) refused to plead, to be represented by lawyers, to cross-examine witnesses or in any other way to influence proceedings. In a final statement Madonsela explained why after 'nearly 50 years of persuasive but peaceful campaigns' met by 'brutal insensitivity' and intransigence, South Africa's 'peace loving people' had formed Umkhonto we Sizwe: 'The alternative to armed struggle was submission.'
The men were charged with carrying out armed actions in their home town of Tembisa in the run-up to the October 1988 municipal elections. Madonsela alone was convicted of causing an explosion outside Tembisa's municipal offices on 6 October injuring six people. The magistrate accepted that he had timed the explosion for lunch-time, hoping to avoid casualties. Both men were convicted of an attack on 10 October on Tembisa police barracks in which four policemen were slightly injured. They were also convicted of the illegal possession of explosives and Madonsela of possessing banned literature of the ANC and the South African Communist Party. Madonsela was sentenced to an effective 18 years and Khumalo to 10 years.
Five defendants sentenced to prison terms for treason and terrorism at the end of the Vaal (later Delmas) Treason Trial were freed from Robben Island on 15 December after winning their appeal. UDF leaders Patrick 'Terror' LEKOTA, Popo MOLEFE and Moss CHIKANE were refused bail throughout the trial and had been in custody continuously since April 1985. Tom MANTHATA, a senior fieldworker with the South African Council of Churches, and Gcina Petrus MALINDI a Vaal activist, had served just over a year of their sentences. Of the five only Malindi was acquitted of treason, receiving his sentence for terrorism. Six other accused who received suspended sentences, also for terrorism, had their convictions overturned by the appeal ruling.
Professor W A Joubert was dismissed by Justice K Van Dijkhorst after he admitted signing the UDF's Million Signature Campaign against the new constitution. At the time defence lawyers called for the trial to be abandoned, but were thwarted in their attempts to present evidence from Joubert in support of this call. Judgment in the appeal was delivered by Chief Justice Corbett who stated that the presiding judge did not have the power to dismiss the assessor nor to order the trial to proceed without him. This could only be done if the assessor was 'physically' unable to continue, not because of an alleged lack of impartiality. In the latter case Justice Dijkhorst should have sought the assessor's recusal, not summarily dismissed him. Furthermore he erred in refusing both Professor Joubert and the accused an opportunity to put forward their views on his decision.
Four men convicted in the Pretoria Regional Court in October 1988 of undergoing military training and furthering the aims of the PAC had their prison terms reduced by the Supreme Court on 3 November 1989. Three others received no reduction in sentence. Mabata Enoch ZULU (52) and Reverend Daniel NKOPODI had their sentences of 16 years reduced to 10 years, Siyabulela Ndoda GCANGA (26) had a 12 year sentence reduced to 10 years while Setsiba Paul MOHLOLO (29) had his 10-year sentence reduced to seven years. Appeals by Vincent Alson MATHUNJWA (29), Achmad CASSIEM (41) and Yusuf PATEL (35) were rejected.
Also in November Justice Kroon reduced the sentences imposed in May 1989 on two ANC combatants, Zolile DIKIZA (28) and Ludwe LEBESE (27), by the Kenton-on-Sea Regional Court. He replaced the 10-year prison terms with seven-year sentences because the presiding magistrate had erred in assessing factors in mitigation of sentence.
The Repression Monitoring Group reported in late November that a five-year sentence imposed in October 1989 on Nana Robert MALITI had been suspended for two years.
The trial of a group of Mamelodi and Atteridgeville activists was due to resume in the New Year in the Eastern Transvaal town of Velmas where it had been transferred from Pretoria. The state alleges a wide-ranging conspiracy involving the twelve men, arising from armed actions in the Pretoria area in 1988. Charges include murder and terrorism. Two of the accused are alleged to have undergone military training abroad and the rest, who include members of the Mamelodi Civic Association and the Youth Congresses of Mamelodi, Sulsville/Atteridgeville and GaRankuwa, to have been trained inside the country. The accused are Moeketsi Rodney TOKA (25), Godfrey Velaphi MOKUBE (41), Francis PITSE (24), Ernest Thoboki RAMADITE (24), George MATHE (21), Johannes MALEKA (25), Peter MALULEKA (34), Phuti Bernard MAKGONYANA (26), Joseph NKOSI (39), Thapela Reuben KHOTSA (23), Reginald Noah LEGODI (22) and Alfred James KGASI (25).
