Suspended sentence 'appropriate' for Vlok
2007-08-17 11:20
Pretoria - The Pretoria High Court ordered suspended sentences on Friday as appropriate punishment for former apartheid-era police minister Adriaan Vlok and four others for the attempted murder of activist cleric Frank Chikane.
By confirming an agreement with the State they in effect pleaded guilty to attempted murder during their appearance.
State prosecutor Anton Ackerman said that Vlok and ex-police chief Johan van der Merwe should be sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, suspended for five years.
He recommended that the other three accused - Major-General Christoffel Smith and colonels Gert Otto and Johannes Van Staden - be sentenced to five years, similarly suspended.
Vlok and Van der Merwe both shook Chikane's hands at the conclusion of the proceedings, taking his personal assistant's telephone number to call him back at a later stage.
Chikane was secretary-general of the SA Council of Churches, which was at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid, when his clothes were lined with a poison that attacked his nervous system.
- SAPA