6 S. Africans Face Murder Charges in Student’s Death

Six suspects in the killing of American scholar Amy Elizabeth Biehl will be charged with murder, public violence and robbery, the attorney general’s office said.

All six, including a 15-year-old youth, appeared in court Monday near the black township outside Cape Town where Biehl, 26, was stabbed to death Aug. 25. Biehl, a Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach, was finishing 10 months of research in South Africa.

The case was postponed until Oct. 8. Five of the six suspects will remain in custody; the youth was released to the custody of his mother.

If convicted of murder, the suspects could receive the death penalty. However, executions have been suspended in South Africa until a post-apartheid government considers the issue of capital punishment.

According to witnesses, Biehl was attacked by a crowd while driving friends home in the Guguletu township. One witness said an attacker told her that Biehl became a target because she was white.

The suspects are members of the Pan-Africanist Student Organization, which is linked to the radical Pan-Africanist Congress. The congress advocates armed struggle against police and whites.

Politically motivated violence has resulted in the deaths of thousands of blacks in recent years. It is considered the greatest threat to the nation’s first multiracial election, planned for April 27.

Police said Monday that more than 40 people nationwide died in violence over the weekend in black townships.

The Human Rights Commission said Monday that the fighting, mostly between rival black factions, killed 554 people in August. The commission said the July-August death toll of 1,159 is the highest two-month figure since record-keeping began in 1990.

Violence increased in early July after black and white negotiators agreed on the election.