Wally Mbhele
The African National Congress this week said it had built up substantial new information to justify the re-opening of the case.
The organisation said it will approach the high court to apply for the re-opening of the case and to make an urgent bail application “so that while the matter is being investigated, the three also become free”.
“We also want to say this is a classic case of serious indictment of the criminal system of the apartheid past,” said the ANC’s acting secretary general, Cheryl Carolus.
ANC sources said the organisation will ask Gauteng Attorney General Jan D’Oliviera, who presided over the prosecution of the three activists, to recuse himself from the investigation.
“D’Oliviera will try to defend his prosecution. We don’t want to pull the wool out of his face [sic],” said the ANC.
Mpumalanga Premier Matthew Phosa said it was worrying to think that “if the death penalty system was still in existence, these three young men would have paid with their lives for something they did not do. They were sentenced on the basis of flimsy evidence put before the court.”
Phosa also questioned the role of the judiciary during the apartheid era. “How many more people could have been hanged on the basis of wrong information? The feeling is that there are many more,” he said.