In a decision which sent shock waves throughout the African National Congress's vast constituency, the former ANC provincial leader and "hero of the struggle", Allan Boesak, was yesterday sentenced to imprisonment for six years.
An application for leave to appeal was refused by the presiding judge. He ruled that another court was unlikely to come to a different decision. Boesak was, however, released on bail pending a petition for leave to appeal.
Boesak, a former president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, had earlier been found guilty on three counts of theft and one of fraud involving the embezzlement of more than 1.3 million rand from funds donated to his now defunct Foundation for Peace and Justice.
In sentencing the world-famous clergyman to imprisonment, Judge John Foxcroft rejected a plea of mitigation from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who described himself as "a friend and partner of Boesak in the struggle to end the vicious system of apartheid".
Boesak's defence lawyer, Mr Mike Maritz, had earlier urged the judge not to imprison Boesak, arguing that he had already suffered greatly, that he would never escape the stigma attached to his conviction of theft and fraud, and that he was not "of prison material". The prosecutor, Mr J.C. Gerber, countered by contending that Boesak had been motivated by greed, that he had deprived the victims of apartheid of money entrusted to him and that, unlike his bookkeeper, Freddie Steenkamp, who is already serving a six year sentence, he had shown no remorse.
Prominent former ANC comrades in the audience included Mr Trevor Manuel, now South Africa's Minister of Finance, and Mr Tony Yegeni, chairman of the parliamentary committee on defence who served under Boesak as his deputy when the clergyman-turned-politician was the ANC's provincial leader in the Western Cape.
The shock which greeted the sentence in ANC ranks was compounded by another court sentence: the escape from imprisonment of a white farmer, Nicholas Steyn, who was charged with murdering a six-month-old black child, Angelina Zwane, as she was crossing his smallholding on the back of her cousin last April.
In that trial, Judge Tjibbe Spoelstra found that Steyn had not deliberately shot and killed Angelina. Expert evidence showed that Steyn had fired upwards, well above the children, but that the bullet had hit an overhead electric cable and ricocheted down towards them.
The judge found Steyn guilty of culpable homicide and assault, but not murder, and concluded that no evidence had been led to justify sending him to jail. Where the verdict in the Boesak case was greeted by protesters carrying placards reading "South African judges are racist", judgment in the Steyn case brought forth cries of "Kill the boer, kill the farmer".