S.A. ignores mercy plea

Press, 1 June 1977, Page 8

S.A. ignores mercy plea

NZPA Johannesburg A Namibian nationalist, Filemon Nangolo, was hanged at Windhoek on Monday despite appeals from five Western powers. Reliable sources said that the Western powers — France, Britain, the United States, West Germany, and Canada — had each in turn asked Pretoria to stay the execution so as not to hamper present negotiations on the constitutional future of Namibia (South-West Africa). Nangolo, who was 26, paralysed from the thigh down after he was shot by South African police during his arrest, was taken to the gallows in a wheelchair to be executed at dawn. He had been found guilty of murdering four white people in Namibia last year in two separate incidents during a raid from neighbouring Angola.

Tne South-West Africa People’s Organisation yesterday cabled a message to the South African Press Association from its London headquarters condemning Nangolo’s execution as murder.

The cable was signed by Mr Peter Katjivivi, S.W.A.P.O.’s external information and publicity secretary.

He said that on Saturday he had cabled the United Nations Secretary-General (Dr Kurt Waldheim), the British Prime Minister (Mr James Callaghan), the International Commission of Jurists, and the International Red Cross urging them to intervene to get a stay of execution or to get the death sentence commuted. “But Vorster went ahead in spite of international appeals and specific representations from the American and British Governments,” the cable said.