Three Guerrillas Given Long Sentences for ’86 South African Treason, Terrorism

Three African National Congress guerrillas, among them one of the most senior ANC leaders tried in 25 years, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms today for treason and terrorism.

A 20-year sentence for treason was issued to the most prominent defendant, Ebrahim Ismail Ebrahim, 51, who was abducted from Swaziland in 1986 by men he said were South African agents. He has been widely described as the highest-ranking ANC official to go on trial since Nelson Mandela and several colleagues were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

Another defendant, Mandla Maseko, received a 23-year sentence for treason. The other, Simon Dladla, received 12 years for terrorism. They were found guilty of laying land mines that injured eight people in Transvaal Province in 1986.

Gave Salutes

Ebrahim, who is of Indian descent, and his co-defendants, who are black, turned toward supporters in the gallery at the Pretoria Supreme Court and gave clenched-fist salutes before they were led away. All three could have been sentenced to death.

Local newspapers reported that after supporters sang an anti-apartheid anthem, a government prosecutor was heard saying, “Long live the AWB”--the Afrikaans initials of the white-supremacist Afrikaner Resistance Movement.

The men were convicted in November after a 16-month trial. At one stage last year, three members of the ANC’s executive committee--who faced arrest in South Africa--gave evidence for the defense at a court session held in London.

Ebrahim, along with his co-defendants, did not testify during the trial, but he submitted a 17-page written statement to the court in which he alleged that all three men were tortured by police.

Called ‘Reprehensible’

“Finding us guilty is merely a statement that the state considers the struggle for democracy, equality, justice, peace and a non-racial society to be morally and politically reprehensible,” he said.

“We wish to say to our people, we tried to carry out your behests,” Ebrahim wrote. “We did our best to live up to what you expected of us as members of the African National Congress.”