Botha Spares Lives of Six in Sharpeville Mob Killing

President Pieter W. Botha spared the Sharpeville Six from the gallows Wednesday, only hours after their final court appeal failed, reprieving the five men and one woman convicted in the 1984 mob murder of a black councilman that marked the beginning of a two-year black uprising.

In “extending mercy,” as the Justice Ministry described it, the president also commuted the death sentences of seven others, including the only four white policemen ever sentenced to hang in South Africa. Two of those officers were convicted of murdering a black man during a drunken night patrol.

Presidential clemency for the so-called Sharpeville Six followed months of intense international pressure from the United States and dozens of other countries, many of which had threatened to recall their diplomats and impose stiff economic sanctions if the six were executed.

Earlier Wednesday, the nation’s highest court had unanimously rejected the six’s last plea to reopen their case, which put their fate in the hands of Botha, the 72-year-old leader who had already once rejected their clemency petition but agreed to reconsider the case, “as a human being, on (its) merits.”

Under Botha’s order, the Sharpeville Six will serve prison terms ranging from 18 to 25 years. They already have spent 3 years on Death Row.

The four condemned white policemen, who received prison sentences of from 15 to 25 years, were saved at least partly by internal pressure, analysts here said Wednesday night. Botha received petitions supporting the police men’s clemency plea from hundreds of fellow Afrikaners, the country’s dominant white group.

“It was, through and through, a political decision. There’s no doubt,” said Prakash Diar, attorney for the Sharpeville Six. “He (Botha) has bowed to international political pressure and to local pressure, trying to appease the right-wingers. He figured four white police officers were on Death Row and something had to be done about it.”

Diar added that he and the relatives of his clients were relieved but nevertheless thought the prison sentences were “shocking and excessive, under the circumstances.”

‘Common Cause’ Ruled

During the trial of the Sharpeville Six in 1985, no evidence was presented that any of the six defendants directly contributed to the death of Jacob Dlamini, a town councilor in Sharpeville, south of Johannesburg. Instead, they were convicted of being part of the mob that was present that day and having “common cause” with those who actually did the killing. Under South African law, that makes them equally guilty.

On Sept. 3, 1984, Dlamini was flushed from his house by a mob of about 100 people--among thousands who had taken to the streets that day to protest a council-approved rent increase in the township. Dlamini, carrying a handgun, tried to flee through a neighbor’s yard but was wrestled to the ground, stoned and hacked with machetes. While he lay unconscious, he was dragged to his burning car, gasoline was poured on his body and he was set on fire.

That incident was the start of two years of nationwide political violence in which thousands were killed or injured, including some black officials who had cooperated with the white-led government’s segregated local councils. Many blacks consider such violence a consequence of the struggle to end apartheid.

The Sharpeville Six became an international rallying point for anti-apartheid forces earlier this year as a March 17 execution date approached. A few hours before the scheduled hangings, the defense won a stay with evidence that a prosecution witness had lied under pressure from police.

Later, though, the judge said he did not have the authority to reopen the case and added that even if he did, the new evidence would not have changed his ruling because there was ample uncontested evidence to implicate all six defendants. The judge’s decision was upheld on appeal Wednesday.

Letter From Witness

The witness, Joseph Manete, was among those who wrote President Botha urging clemency for the Sharpeville Six.

Families of the six were elated by the news Wednesday night.

“For the first time after three years, I had to cry tears of relief,” Joyce Mokgesi, sister of Francis Mokgesi, told Independent Television News. “I never cried like this before.”

Besides Mokgesi, 31, a window dresser and professional soccer player, the other five are: Mojalefa Sefatsa, 32, a fruit vendor; Reid Mokeona, 24, unemployed; Oupa Deniso, 32, a quality control inspector at a steel plant; Duma Khumalo, 28, a college student, and Theresa Ramashamole, 26, a waitress.

In a separate case, attorneys were trying Wednesday night to prevent the scheduled execution this morning of Paul Setlaba, 23, similarly convicted of having a “common purpose” with a mob that killed a woman during political unrest in 1985.

So far this year, 110 people have been hanged in South Africa, a nation that has condemned and executed more people than any other Western legal system in recent years. Last year, 164 people went to the gallows at Pretoria Central Prison.

Commuting 13 sentences in one day, as Botha did Wednesday, is rare. Since 1982, more than 80% of all death sentences have been carried out. The president has reprieved fewer than 25 people a year, on average, since 1982.

Botha did not give his reasons for commuting the death sentences Wednesday.

1986 Murder

Among the four white policemen reprieved were riot squad officers Leon De Villiers and David Goosen, sentenced for the 1986 murder of a black man in a rural township in the eastern Cape province.

The others were Capt. Jack LaGrange and Sgt. Robert van der Merwe, convicted in a widely publicized case here of carrying out hired killings of two suspected drug dealers in Soweto, the sprawling black satellite township near Johannesburg.

The four police officers were sentenced earlier this year and had spent less than eight months on death row.