Salisbury Awaits Execution Hour

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31621, 6 March 1968, Page 17

Salisbury Awaits Execution Hour

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) SALISBURY, March 5. The fate of two of three Africans condemned to die for murder plunged Britain and Rhodesia into fresh constitutional conflict today, calling into question Rhodesia’s professed loyalty to Queen Elizabeth. In defiance of a reprieve granted by the Queen, the Rhodesian Appeal Court yesterday again rejected the pleas of the two men waiting to be hanged for the petrol-bomb murder of a white farmer.

The third condemned African, whose appeal for a reprieve was also rejected by the Appeal Court last week but was granted by the Queen, has lodged an appeal for clemency with the Officer Administering the Government (Mr Clifford Dupont).

Mr Dupont is recognised by the Government as representing the Queen in Rhodesia, but the Queen still recognises Sir Humphrey Gibbs as Governor.

The Rhodesian Government has announced that the law will take its course.

Salisbury is thick with rumours that all three men, who have been in prison awaiting execution for more than two years, will be hanged today, but no-one seems to know exactly when the executions will take place. If the men are hanged, the first news will be the formal notice pinned to the gate of Salisbury Prison saying that the sentences have been carried out. The court ruling last night rejected the condemned men’s renewed appeals, which had been based on the Queen’s reprieve, brought to a climax a day of events which deepened the constitutional conflict

The basic issue is: Does the “rebel” Rhodesian Government, which unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1961, have the legal right to put these men to death.

Judgments passed down from the High Court say it

has, and that Britain has no authority to intefere, but there are signs of deep uneasiness among the judiciary. Judge Resigns Mr Justice Fieldsend, one of the country’s best-known judges—who, all along, has expressed doubts about the legal ,position of Mr lan Smith’s Government, has resigned. In a letter to the Secretary for Justice, Mr Justice Fieldsend said: “It is my view that to continue in office as a judge in the present circumstances, particularly in the light of the Government’s declared intention not to recognise a right of appeal to the Privy Council, amounts to accepting the abandonment of the 1965 Constitution, both as an enforceable standard by which to judge, and as the source of authority of the court.” Mr Justice Fieldsend says he cannot accept this abandonment. News Censored

Rhodesian readers of the Salisbury morning newspaper today found virtually the entire top-half of the front page a vast white blank space. Censors had expunged all reference in the “Rhodesia Herald” to the resignation of Mr Justice Fieldsend, and to criticism by another judge of the High Court’s refusal.

It was the biggest frontpage cut ever made by the Rhodesian Government censors.

Rejecting an application for a perpetual interdict to prevent the Government hanging the two men, the Chief Justice (Sir Hugh Beadle) said:

“Her Majesty is quite powerless in this matter. It is a matter much to be deplored that the Queen was brought into this. It is not a personal decision by Her Majesty, but by her Government. It is a source of great regret that Her Majesty has become involved.”

Sir Hugh Beadle said that since 1961 Mr Smith’s Government had been the only Government with power to exercise the perogative of mercy, and all legislation on Rhodesia passed by the British Government since the declaration of Independence in 1965 had been totally ineffective and had no validity in Rhodesia.

The Chief Justice was sitting with the Judge President

of the Appellate Division (Sir Vincent Quenet) and Mr Justice H. N. McDonald. When earlier, the three condemned Africans had sought, in the High Court, the right to appeal to the Privy Council in London against their sentences, the Government stepped in to remind the judges that it did not recognise the Privy Council. The appeals were turned down. A second judge, Mr Deridy Young, in a statement from the Bench yesterday, questioned the decisions by the Appeal Court rejecting the Africans’ appeals and asked that the court be given an opportunity to clarify the effects of its refusal.

Meanwhile, the total of Africans under sentence of death rose to 107 yesterday, when four alleged terrorists were condemned for endangering law and order by entering the country in possession of weapons of war, under the Law and Order Maintenance Act.