Penalty Of Death For Subversive Training

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30466, 13 June 1964, Page 13

Penalty Of Death For Subversive Training

(N.Z.P.A.-Rcuter—Copyright) GAPE TOWN, June 12. Training in subversive activities inside South Africa can be punished with death under a new General Laws Amendment Bill published in Parliament yesterday.

Hitherto, such training outside the country was an offence which could carry the death penalty under the Suppression of Communism Act

The pew bill extends the provision to include those who receive such training inside the country. Also included are people who “attempt, consent, or take any steps to undergo, or incite, instigate, command, aid, advise, encourage, or procure such other person” to undergo training.

Nelson Mandela and seven other men found guilty yesterday of sabotage and plotting to overthrow the South African Government waited in closely guarded cells of the central prison for sentencing today, Mandela, a powerfully built 46-year-old former chief of the banned African National Congress—-the African freedom movement in South Africa—and his fellow prisoners face the hangman’s rope.

It was believed, however, that the extreme penalty will not be passed by Mr Justice Quartus de Wet, Judge-Presi-dent of the Transvaal, who yesterday pronounced their guilt in a five-minute Supreme Court session.

He is expected to announce long prison terms for the eight men—six Africans, a white engineer, and an Indian—whom he found had planned and directed an underground movement to pre-

pare for a country-wide revolt by guerrilla warfare, an invasion, and widespread sabotage. Mandela raised his manacled hands and shouted “Africa" from behind the steel mesh of a police waggon after he had been convicted yesterday. In London 48 members of Parliament last night marched from the House of Commons to protest against the South African sabotage trial and the verdicts. They were mostly Labour Party men, with a few Liberals and one Conservative. They were led by three M.P.s who are officers of the world campaign for the release of South African prisoners Mr Humphrey Berkeley, the chairman and the lone Conservative; Mr Dick Taverne, a Labour M.P., who is vice-chairman; and Mr J. J. Thorpe, secretary and Liberal M.P. The marchers took with them a letter to the South African Ambassador in London, signed by more than 100 M.P.s.

The letter was placed in a letter box of South Africa House by Mr Fenner Brockway, a Labour M.P. It called for the release of the sabotage trial prisoners “in the name of human rights and racial equality." Outside South Africa House, police stood guard every few

feet and in Trafalgar Square, which flanks South Africa House. The procession went off without incident and the M.P.s dispersed. Some said it was the first time a march from the House had taken place.