Biehl Died Awaiting Medics, Court Told

Amy Biehl, the American student stabbed by a mob of blacks shouting anti-white slogans, died while waiting for an ambulance, a police officer testified Wednesday.

It took the ambulance 30 minutes to reach the station house where police had taken Biehl after scaring off the mob, Police Constable Leon Rhodes said at the trial of three of her alleged attackers. He did not say how long Biehl had been at the station before she died.

Biehl, a 26-year-old Fulbright scholar from Newport Beach, was killed in a black township near Cape Town on Aug. 25. Biehl, who was white, had spent 10 months in South Africa working on a voter-education project.

Three members or supporters of the militant Pan-Africanist Congress student wing are on trial in her death. Charges against three other defendants were dropped Monday, the opening day of the trial, because a witness said he was afraid to testify against them.

Rhodes said that, when police reached her, a bloodied Biehl was standing with help from others, but was unable to speak.

Rhodes said he radioed for an ambulance while driving Biehl to the police station about 500 yards away. It took the ambulance about 30 minutes to reach the station, not unusual in the poorly served black community.

The defendants--Mongesi Manqina, 21; Mzikhona Nofemela, 22, and Vusumzi Ntamo, 22--have pleaded not guilty to murder, public violence and robbery.