Joannesburg - Neo-Nazi leader, Eugene Terre'Blanche, won a two-day reprieve yesterday from the start of a long sojourn in prison following the rejection of an appeal, Patrick Laurence reports.
Terre'Blanche, whose oratorical skills once rallied tens of thousands of Afrikaners to his cause and that of his neofascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement, should have started a six-year prison sentence yesterday following his conviction for attempted murder. By staying away from his farm and hiding in Pretoria, he prevented police from serving an order on him to report to prison the next day.
A year ago Terre'Blanche (57) served six months in prison for assaulting a black petrol attendant. But hanging over his head was the pending appeal against his conviction for attempted murder. His victim, another black man, suffered permanent brain damage.
"If I must go to jail I will," Terre'Blanche said, biting back tears of self-pity. A white farmer hailing from the same region has been charged with murder after allegedly gassing 47 black people by throwing poisonous phostoxim tablets into their living quarters.