S.A. guerrilla hanged

Press, 7 April 1979, Page 1

S.A. guerrilla hanged

NZPA Pretoria The black guerrilla, Solomon Mahlangu, aged 23, was hanged at dawn yesterday in the central prison at Pretoria, accord - ing to South Africa’s Prisons Department. The execution of the African National Congress member was carried out in spite of world-wide pleas for mercy to the President (Mr Vorster). A last-minute plea by President Carter was rebuffed by the Prime Minister (Mr Botha) who said, “It is not for me to interfere in the process of law." In spile of a growing campaign among black South Africans for Mahlangu’s reprieve, there were no organised demonstrations outside the jail. The son of a washer, woman deserted by her husband, Mahlangu was said by a psychiatrist to have been deeply affected

by his family’s poverty. At his trial a year ago it was said that he had received militarv training in Angola and Mozambique ana retur ,u with two other blacks. The three were involved in a running clash with the police in central Johannesburg which ended with two white warehouse workers being shot dead as the blacks sought refuge. Only Mahlangu stood trial. One man escaped and the other suffered such serious head injuries during a struggle in the warehouse that he was found unfit to plead. The Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr Taiboys) yesterday said, “The New Zealand Government abhors the repressive nature of the apartheid system which is the root cause of incidents such as that in which Solomon Mahlangu was involved.”