The acquittal of journalist Tony Weaver under the Police Act yesterday has turned the spotlight back onto the police and the incident in which seven alleged guerrillas were shot in Guguletu, Cape Town, last year.
Weaver, the Cape Times deputy news editor, was yesterday acquitted on charges of contravening Section 27 (b) of the Police Act. He had been accused of publishing untrue matter about the deaths of the seven alleged ANC cadres in a BBC interview the day after the shootings.
In it he cited eye-witnesses' claims that some of the men were shot dead in cold blood and said families ofthe dead men felt Russian-made weapons had been planted on their bodies to justify their being shot.
Finding Weaver not guilty, magistrate J M Lemmer said the "true facts" were not put before the court by the State. He had no reason not to believe the medical evidence – unchallenged by the State – which contradicted police testimony on how six of the seven died, and evidence by three eye-witnesses caned by the defence could therefore also not be rejected.
Lemmer added that even if he had found that Weaver had published false matter, the evidence was that he had reasonable grounds for believing it was true. Weaver said this week he believed his acquittal was not the end of the matter. He wished to know whether the Attorney General would re open the inquest into the deaths of the seven alleged guerrillas.
Weaver said that at an inquest hearing, the presiding magistrate refused toallow oral evidence or the cross examination of police witnesses. Yet the medical evidence showed conclusively that some of the police witnesses lied and that several of the men were shot at point-blank range.
He also wanted to know:
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Whether the "inexplicable" disappearance of part of the court exhibit and alterations made to a police register had yet been investigated;
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The reason why three other charges, relating to Cape Times reports of the same incident were suddenly dropped at the start of the trial.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
