South Africa’s apartheid-era minister of law and order Adriaan Vlok and four co-accused pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of attempting to murder Frank Chikane, a leading black activist cleric, in 1989.
Vlok, his former police chief Johann van der Merwe and three other former high-ranking police officers pleaded guilty to the charge of the attempted murder of Chikane by poisoning his underwear.
They confirmed in the Pretoria High Court that there had been an agreement between the state and themselves over the attempted murder charges.
Vlok was handed a suspended 10-year prison sentence. State advocate Anton Ackermann told the Pretoria High Court the sentence would be suspended for five years.
Chikane was in court if he needed to answer any questions on the crime committed when he was the secretary general of the South African Council of Churches.
Shortly before the five elderly, grey-haired men took their seats in the dock, Chikane joined National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) officials in the front row of the public gallery.
Proceedings started after police herded out a group of foreign and local photographers who had lined up to take pictures of the accused.
At one point during proceedings Vlok turned to Chikane and said: ”I want to talk to you.”
Chikane acknowledged Vlok’s smile.
Last year Vlok asked forgiveness of Chikane while washing his feet.
Ackerman told the court that the prosecution of Vlok was not a ”Nuremberg trial”, and was not an attempt at revenge, referring to the war crimes prosecution of Germany’s Nazi leaders.
The NPA was aware of the word ”reconciliation”, he said.
Protesters outside the court demanded that Vlok be prosecuted for other human rights abuses when he was in charge of police during apartheid, the racially based political system that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.
”We want justice to be done to these guys … We suffered a lot [and] people were shot and killed by police at that time,” said Lenni Makhiwame outside the Pretoria High Court.
Makhiwame was one of several protesters holding placards saying ”Apartheid is a crime against humanity” outside the court. — Reuters, Sapa