Following President De Klerk's announcement of a moratorium on executions in February no hangings have taken place in Pretoria Central Prison but some three hundred condemned prisoners remain on Death Row there, about one-fifth of them political cases. Protests about conditions continued.
Under the regime's plans all cases still pending will be reviewed when parliament decides on proposals for amendment to legislation governing the imposition of the death sentence. According to the Minister of Justice both an advisory body of experts and the Appellate Division will be involved in evaluating the sentences.
Ndibulele NDZAMELA and Pumzile MAYAPHI, who were sentenced to death by the Transkei Supreme Court in May 1989, had their sentence replaced by an 18-year prison term on appeal on 1 February and later the same month were freed under an amnesty for political prisoners announced by the bantustan administration.
On 27 November 1989 the State President commuted the death sentences passed on two men from Nelspruit, Ellett Malindana NKUNA and Mpande Joseph MAHLALELA. They are to serve 20 years imprisonment instead.
Mxolisi NCAPHAYI, a member of the Hanover Youth Organisation, and three other residents of the Eastern Cape township of Kwezi, Vuzumsi JACK, Samson BOOYSEN and Bennet SONAMZI, recently appealed against the death sentences passed on them in January 1988 for their alleged involvement with a crowd who killed a suspected police informer Albert Nkumbi. The appeal was heard on 3 and 27 November and judgment reserved.
More details of the incident for which they were condemned emerged in the course of a suit filed by Nkumbi's widow against the Minister of Law and Order. She stated that her husband was living temporarily under police protection at the time of his death and that they had failed to protect his life.
On 4 April the men won their appeal and were given sentences of between 10 and 18 years.
