Apartheid Official Guilty of 89 Charges

A high-ranking police official, called the “most effective assassin” of South Africa’s apartheid era, has been convicted of 89 of 121 criminal charges, including six of murder. It took the judge two days to read the verdicts against Eugene de Kock. He is to be sentenced Sept. 16. De Kock commanded a police unit at an isolated farm outside Pretoria where anti-apartheid activists were tortured and killed. He could receive life sentences for the murder convictions and additional penalties for the other charges, which include attempted murder, abduction and manslaughter.