Probe into news agency

Press, 5 July 1983, Page 11

Probe into news agency

NZPA Johannesburg The South African police have advised the South African Press Association that it is being investigated for reporting allegations of police atrocities in Namibia (South-West Africa). Edward Linington, editor of the independent news cooperative run by South African newspapers, said that two police officers visited the agency on Friday to inform him of the investigation. Editors of three newspapers have already been warned of possible prosecution under a 1958 law that makes it a crime to publish a report “regarding the South African police or any part of the force, or any member of the force in relation to the performance of the functions as such, without having reasonable grounds for believing that the statement is true.” At issue were statements made by the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, the most Rev. Denis Hurley, chairman of the South African Bishops’ Conference in Pretoria, alleging that the police had committed atrocities against blacks in the South African-administered territory. Police and military units are fighting black nationalist guerrillas who seek to wrest control of the territory from South Africa.