The Reitz Four have requested the Free State director of public prosecutions to drop a charge of crimen injuria against them, Beeld reported on Thursday.
Their lawyer, Christo Dippenaar, confirmed to the Afrikaans daily that he had handed in a written request to advocate Andre du Toit SC.
The four accused — RC Malherbe, Schalk van der Merwe, Johnny Roberts and Danie Grobler — are expected to appear in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on October 26 on charges of crimen injuria.
The four former students of the now-closed Reitz men’s residence in Bloemfontein are accused of filming a mock initiation of five black staff members into hostel activities.
The black university employees were seen on their hands and knees eating food that had apparently been urinated on by a white student.
The university’s new rector, Jonathan Jansen, recently withdrew disciplinary charges against the four students behind the 2007 incident ”in a gesture of racial reconciliation”, drawing widespread criticism from several quarters in the African National Congress. — Sapa