Reprieved Man Admits Role in S. Africa Killing

Benjamin Moloisi, whose execution on murder charges was stayed by an unprecedented Supreme Court ruling, admitted in court papers released Wednesday that, despite earlier denials, he had taken part in the 1982 killing of a security policeman.

But Moloisi said he was forced to do so after a black nationalist organization found that he had been cooperating with the police.

Moloisi, 31, a black poet, was granted a three-week reprieve Tuesday night, less than 12 hours before he was to hang for the policeman’s murder, to give him time to present new evidence in his plea to President Pieter W. Botha for clemency.

The court ruling followed pressure from the international community, including formal representations from Britain, West Germany and the United States, and warnings here that his execution could set off violent protests. The government offered no real objection to the stay of execution.

Series of Attacks

In his new appeal, Moloisi, an upholsterer by trade, said that agents of the outlawed African National Congress had threatened him with death several times because of his cooperation with police in a case that sent three congress guerrillas to the gallows for a series of attacks on police stations.

He was eventually given the choice of killing police officer Phillipus Selepee or “getting the bullet” himself, Moloisi told the court in a writen statement.

Friendless and facing “the most important crisis of my life,” Moloisi said, “I chose and I chose wrongly.”

Two days ago, he was a hero in the black community as another “martyr” in the struggle against the apartheid system of racial segregation and minority white rule. But on Wednesday, Moloisi was castigated in the black-run Sowetan newspaper for his “damning admissions” and “his treachery and cooperation with the security police.”