De Wet's 'religious conviction'

2003-04-29 15:12

Pretoria - De Wet Kritzinger believed he had to shoot innocent black people to keep a promise with God, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday.

"I believed that by keeping my promise to God and obeying God I (did) not act wrongfully," he said in a statement to court read by his counsel, Harry Prinsloo.

But he also believed the government was planning farm attacks and that a message had to be sent out in this regard.

Kritzinger, who carried a Bible in the dock, pleaded not guilty to the murder of three black people on a bus in Constantia Park, Pretoria, in January 2000, and the attempted murder of four more.

However, he admitted he had shot the seven people.

At the start of the proceedings on Tuesday, Judge Dion Basson ruled that Kritzinger was able to stand trial. Basson accepted a report in which three psychiatrists said he had not suffered from any mental disorder or defect at the time of the incident and could realise the wrongful nature of the crime.

In his statement, Kritzinger said: "What I did, was not a racist act, but because my political thought is based on my religious conviction I believe that each nation should rule itself.

"I do not hate other nations, but I hate the Jews; they are the physical descendants of Satan ..."

Kritzinger said he regarded the white Western nations as the chosen people of the God of Israel, the Adamites, the descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel.

"All other coloured nations I regard as heathens, but I respect the religion they practice."

In 1992, he promised he would dedicate his life to God.

The promise read: "I am only one, and yet I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something, and what I can do, I should do and what I should do through the mercy of God I shall do."

On January 12, 1996, exactly four years before the shooting, he married Marianna.

"Because of the crime situation in our country, especially the murder of farmers ... and the rape of women I always had the fear that Marianna would be murdered or raped. I would protect her with my life."

After his marriage, he made a second promise to God, namely that his first promise would become effective if anything happened to Marianna.

Kritzinger said his father-in-law brought him into contact with the Israel Truth, an extremist organisation whose views on race he supported.

Marianna worked for the Israeli embassy, which was totally unacceptable to him as he regarded Jews as "the viperous brood".

When his wife told him she would leave him, he remembered his promise to God and regarded it as a test of his obedience to God.

"According to my religious belief a divorced woman cannot remarry. If someone married her it would be a sin ... A widow can remarry...

"Therefore I had to die so [Marianna] could be free again to marry someone else. I waited for a sign from God."

When Marianna told him a week before the incident that she was to remarry, he regarded that as the sign.

During July 1999, when she initially left him, many farmers were murdered. That, as well as the killing of white soldiers at the Tempe base in Bloemfontein, had a major effect on him, Kritzinger said.

"I believed the farm attacks were planned in high political circles. I also believed the government of the day was busy with political warfare.

"I believed a message should be sent out."

Kritzinger said he thought there would be a confrontation with police during the incident and he would be shot dead.

"Then Marianna would be free to remarry.

"God instituted marriage and I believed that because my marriage failed, I failed God and I had to keep my promise to God," he said.

The trial continues.

- SAPA