South Africa's apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok was handed a 10-year suspended jail sentence yesterday after pleading guilty to the attempted murder of a leading black activist 18 years ago.
In a plea bargain reached with prosecutors, Vlok, his former police chief Johann van der Merwe and three other former security officials, all admitted seeking to kill Frank Chikane, currently a senior aide to South African President Thabo Mbeki, by having his clothes laced with poison. The poison attacked his nervous system, making him violently ill.
At the time, Chikane was secretary general of the South African Council of Churches -- one of the bodies leading the fight against the apartheid system.
Vlok and van der Merwe were given 10-year prison sentences, suspended for five years. The three lower-ranking policemen were given five-year terms, suspended for four years.
State advocate Anton Ackermann stressed the case, which comes 13 years after apartheid fell, was not driven by revenge and said that was reflected by the sentence, which came after Vlok and his co-accused struck a plea bargain under which charges of conspiracy to murder were withdrawn.
"This is not a Nuremberg trial," Ackermann said referring to the 1940s trial of Nazi war criminals. "This case is not about retribution, even less has this case been motivated by revenge."
Vlok last year washed Chikane's feet in an act of contrition -- a hugely symbolic act in a country where many people count themselves as devout Christians, and where the wounds of the recent past remain raw.
Chikane was present in court when the men pleaded guilty.
Protesters outside the Pretoria High Court demanded Vlok be prosecuted for other abuses when he was in charge of police during apartheid.
"We want justice to be done to these guys ... We suffered a lot [and] people were shot and killed by police at that time," Lenni Makhiwame said before the sentences were handed down.
Makhiwame was one of several protesters holding placards reading "Apartheid is a crime against humanity."
Yesterday's trial was widely seen as a test case for the prosecution of apartheid-era officials who were not granted an amnesty by the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Vlok was the only apartheid-era minister to appear before the commission, and received an amnesty for a series of bombings but he did not ask for immunity for Chikane's poisoning.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS