Biehls Won’t Oppose Amnesty Plea

The family of Amy Biehl, the Newport Beach student slain in South Africa, will not file papers opposing an amnesty request by one of four men convicted of her murder four years ago, her parents said Tuesday.

“Our feeling is [that] it’s their country, and their process, and let the case be decided on its merits or lack of them,” said her father, Peter Biehl, 54.

Amy Biehl was a 26-year-old white Fulbright scholar who was stabbed and stoned to death by a mob shouting anti-white slogans in August 1993 near Cape Town. Her killing focused international attention on the divisive violence in South Africa as it struggled to cast off apartheid and hold its first free elections in 1994.

In mid-May, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is scheduled to hear an amnesty request from Mongezi Manquina, 25, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his part in Biehl’s slaying. Biehl’s other three assailants also are expected to seek amnesty from the commission by the May 10 deadline; if they apply, their requests will be heard with Manquina’s.

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The commission, headed by retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is investigating apartheid-era abuses. The panel will consider granting amnesty to those who confess to political crimes as a way to help correct the abuses of the past. Commission members already have granted amnesty to several applicants in other cases.

Biehl’s mother, Linda, is deciding whether to attend Manquina’s hearing, which is expected to start the week of May 19 in Cape Town. The Biehls are waiting to hear back from Tutu’s staff for more details on the hearings, Peter Biehl said.

During the amnesty pleas, commission members invite family members of victims to present testimony or opposition, but the Biehls have decided to do neither.

In order to win amnesty, applicants must show that they were following instructions given to them or sanctioned by a political group, and that the crime was justified.

“That’s going to be a little difficult to prove since this was just the worst and most violent murder,” Peter Biehl said. “It was just completely out of control. So the feeling is they will have a very, very hard time establishing either of those two points.”

Amy Biehl, who had spent 10 months in South Africa on a voter education project, was pulled from her car and attacked while driving friends home to Guguletu, a poor black township. She would have turned 30 last week.

After Biehl’s slaying, her family set up the nonprofit Amy Biehl Foundation to continue her work. Peter and Linda Biehl, who now live near Palm Springs, already plan to fly to South Africa on June 27. For a month, they will work with Mosaic, one of the foundation’s pet projects, which teaches promising women from squatter camps how to become community leaders.