MONDAY, 5.30PM:
THE African National Congress said on Tuesday it has traced three witnesses willing to sign affidavits that they testified falsely against three ANC members who were subsequently wrongfully jailed for the 1994 ”Eikenhof murders”.
After meeting the jailed trio, Sihpo Gavin, 27, Sphiwe Bholo, 29, and Boy Ndweni, 22, at Pretoria Central Prison, ANC acting secretary-general Cheryl Carolus said the affidavits will be submitted to the high court as soon as possible to have the convictions overturned. The ANC will also file for a retrial with the attorney-general’s office as a matter of urgency.
The three were jailed four years ago in the Heidelberg Circuit Court by Justice David Curlewis, whom Carolus referred to as a ”hanging judge”. During the trial, Curlewis rejected testimony by the accused that they were tortured into confessing by Brixton Murder and Robbery unit head Charlie Landman. Curlewis found the trio guilty and sentenced them to death. Only a subsequent maratorium on hangings followed by abolition of the death penalty saved them from the gallows.
The ANC trio’s innocence came to light last month when a member of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the Pan Africanist Congress, applied for amnesty for the murders.