3 Escapers Won’t Be Rearrested, S. Africa Says

The South African government said Wednesday that three anti-apartheid leaders holed up in the U.S. Consulate after escaping detention are free men and will not be rearrested.

But the lawyer for the trio, who had been held for more than a year without trial, said he received no official word of the government’s stance and gave no indication what his clients plan to do.

Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha said the three were “not in any danger of being arrested once they leave the consulate.” Police said they would have to issue new orders to detain the men again but that they have no plans to do so.

Escaped From Hospital

The activists slipped away from their police guards Tuesday while undergoing physiotherapy at a hospital and made their way to the consulate in a downtown office building.

“We sought refuge in the U.S. Consulate because we failed to see any justification for our continued detention without trial,” the three said in the statement. “We have now resorted to the only dignified response to our continued incarceration.”

The escapees are Murphy Morobe, acting publicity secretary of the banned United Democratic Front, Mohammed Valli Moosa, the front’s acting general secretary, and Vusi Khanyile, chairman of the banned National Education Crisis Committee.

Morobe, detained without trial since July, 1987, and Khanyile, detained since December, 1986, are black. Valli Moosa, an Indian, was arrested with Morobe in 1987.

The trio, in a statement released by their lawyer, Krish Naidoo, called for an end to the 27-month-old state of emergency and demanded “the right to walk out of this consulate free of any restrictions, or the threat of redetention.”

U.S. Ambassador Edward J. Perkins, the first black U.S. ambassador to South Africa, met for an hour Tuesday night with Naidoo and other members of a committee representing the activists.

U.S. officials have said the activists would not be forced to leave their sanctuary against their will despite a worldwide U.S. policy of not formally granting asylum in diplomatic offices.

An estimated 32,000 people have been detained without charge for varying periods during the emergency, which the white-led government declared to control widespread black protests.