Afrikaner officers cleared of trumped up charges

Two senior Afrikaner officers of 121 Battalion cleared of trumped-up charges by Appeal Court.

NOT GUILTY -- Lt.col. Tobie van Eeden, former commander of 121 Battalion

Pietermaritzburg - RAPPORT newspaper - The convictions and sentences of two senior 121 Battalion officers - who had been arrested amidst a blaze of publicity in 2004 and had lost their jobs after their convictions-- have been set aside by Appeals Court judges Nic van der Reyde and Piet Koen this Friday.

Ex-commander of 121 Battalion near Mtubatuba, Lt-Col Tobie van Eeden (45, left), and its former judicial officer Maj. Ferdinand Labuschagne (39) were cleared of all the charges stemming from false accusations which had been made by a driver that the Afrikaner officers had conspired to kill a black 21 Battalion officer - who has since died of AIDS.

Amidst a blaze of media publicity, four Afrikaner officers initially were arrested at the Battalion near St. Lucia in 2004 for this alleged conspiracy: two were cleared, but Lieut-Colonel Louis van Eeden, officer commanding of 121 Battalion at Mtubatuba near St Lucia, and Maj Ferdinand Labuschagne, law officer of the battalion, were convicted of defeating the ends of justice by regional magistrate L Naidoo in the Eskhawini court near Richard's Bay in November 2004.

• Each was fined R4 000, or two years jail, plus five years jail suspended. And of course, they also lost their jobs.

Judge Van der Reyden said that the catalyst leading to their arrest, trial and conviction was the arrest of two fellow officers, the battalion intelligence officer Maj J Bronkhorst and the transport officer, Major P Goosen, on a charge of conspiring to murder the second in command of Maj M Manekwane. Manekwane died of AIDS-related disease a year after their arrests.

The main witness in the conspiracy case against Bronkhorst and Goosen was Rifleman M Sithole and he had submitted three conflicting statements, the court said.

Forced to falsely implicate the Afrikaner officers:
The state alleged that Van Eeden and Labuschagne had intervened on behalf of Bronkhorst and Goosen by influencing Sithole to retract his first formal statement to the police in which he 'd alleged that Bronkhorst and Goosen plotted to murder Manekwane.

• On the same day Labuschagne took Sithole to a Mtubatuba SAPS officer and Sithole then retracted his first statement saying that he had been forced to falsely implicate Bronkhorst and Goosen in the plot to kill Manekwane.
• When Sithole's retracting statement was handed to a prosecutor she told the SAPS investigating officer of Sithole' second statement.
• That same evening the police obtained a third statement from Sithole in which he retracted his second statement and said his first statement implicating Bronkhorst and Goosen was true.
  

In his judgment at the time, magistrate Naidoo had said, "This case has all the characteristics of a tragic play where the prejudices, bias and so forth based on race kinmanship, partisanship and other prejudices are rife, and were indeed exposed."

Van der Reyden said in the Appeals Court judgment however that one would have expected a regional magistrate to approach the case with an objective and open mind.

• "However he (Naidoo) did not do so. He lost sight of the fact that Sithole's two statements revealed two possible plots - a conspiracy of white officers to get rid of Manekwane and/or a conspiracy by black officer officers to get rid of white officers.
• "It is clear that the magistrate had closed his mind to the probability that Sithole had falsely implicated Bronkhorst and Goosen, that he went to Labuschagne of his own volition and disclosed to him the falsity of his third statement and that his second statement retracting his first statement reflected the true position.This oversight by the magistrate resulted in him defining the main plot solely based on the state case.

"He also overlooked the fact that a finding that Sithole went to Labuschagne on his own volition and told him the true position - that he had falsely implicated Bronkhorst and Goosen - could only have one outcome: an acquittal on the charge of defeating the course of justice," Van der Reyden said. Judge Koen concurred. - Sapa

Source: Crime Busters of South Africa
http://www.news24.com/Rapport/Suid-Afrika/0,,752-2460_2412105,00.html
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=nw20081017170106388