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FT 01 MAY 92 / Death sentence for white policeman
By PATTI WALDMEIR
JOHANNESBURG
A SOUTH AFRICAN judge yesterday sentenced to death a white police captain
convicted of murdering 11 blacks in an attack aimed at sympathisers of the
African National Congress.
It was the first time a member of the security forces had been sentenced to
death for a politically motivated killing, and will fuel controversy over
the role of police in black-on-black violence which has left 11,000 people
dead since 1984.
Mr Justice Andrew Wilson of the Supreme Court in Pietermaritzburg, Natal,
found Captain Brian Mitchell had ordered four black constables to carry out
the killings in the Trust Feed black settlement outside Pietermaritzburg in
December 1988. The court heard that Mitchell had meant the constables to
kill ANC sympathisers whom he regarded as terrorists but that the wrong
people, including women and children, were attacked. The constables were
also convicted of murder and received effective jail sentences of 15 years
each. In giving judgment last week, the judge said there appeared to have
been attempts at a cover-up.
No death sentences have been carried out since President FW de Klerk
announced a moratorium on executions two years ago.
The Financial Times
London Page 4