Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leader Eugene Terre’Blanche on Wednesday received a second chance at an early release from prison.
He is serving a five-year sentence for attempted murder.
Pretoria High Court Judge Fanie Mynhardt instructed the Correctional Services Department to reconsider Terre’Blanche’s request for the remainder of his jail term to be converted to correctional supervision.
Mynhardt set aside a departmental decision in April not to alter the sentence, saying there had been irregularities in making it.
Terre’Blanche’s application should be heard anew, the judge said.
He criticised the department for not giving Terre’Blanche a chance to defend himself before coming to its final conclusion. It had received damning opinions from other sources, which were never put to Terre’Blanche for comment.
”It cannot be said that (Terre’Blanche) has not been prejudiced (by the department’s conduct). The possibility cannot be excluded,” Mynhardt said.
Terre’Blanche (58) is serving his sentence at the Rooigrond prison in North West for attempting to murder former security guard Paul Motshabi in March 1996. Motshabi was left permanently disabled.
He went to prison in March last year after the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld his 1997 conviction and sentence.
At the time, he was out on parole after serving less than six months of a one-year sentence for assaulting petrol attendant John Ndzima — eight months after the attack on Motshabi.
Mynhardt said it would have been fair to give Terre’Blanche an opportunity to react to statements such as one by the parole board that he posed a danger to the local community, especially blacks.
”Such statements could have had a detrimental effect on his case, and he should have been given an opportunity to respond,” he said.
Terre’Blanche was also not allowed to explain that he had received a presidential amnesty for all his previous convictions — and that it was therefore wrong for the parole board to find that he had a criminal history.
”It is likely that (Terre’Blanche) would have been able to provide information which would have changed the respondent’s views altogether,” the judge said.
Ben Stoop, Terre’Blanche’s lawyer, told the court the department failed to take into account the fact that his client was now providing for Motshabi.
”How can the interests of the victim be served through the continued imprisonment of my client? If he can look after him from prison, how much better could he not provide for him after his release?”
He criticised the parole board for rejecting a social worker’s report that Terre’Blanche was remorseful.
Terre’Blanche’s legal team said they would approach the department within this week to make arrangements for a new hearing. After the department has considered his suitability for release on correctional supervision, the matter would be referred to a court for a final decision.
Should his application fail, Terre’Blanche would become eligible for parole only in November next year.
In court documents, the rightwinger says spending time in jail has taught him to control his temper.
He had become a reborn Christian, had struck up many friendships in jail, and did not hold any grudges.
The department, however, believed he should stay behind bars as he was still a danger to society.
Cited as respondents in Terre’Blanche’s application were the national commissioner, the North West provincial commissioner and the minister of Correctional Services, as well as the head of Rooigrond prison. – Sapa