COURT-APLA

APLA CADRES JAILED 25 YEARS FOR MASSACRE
BISHO April 20 1999

Two Apla cadres convicted of the Baha'i Faith mission massacre in 1994 were sentenced to effectively 25 years jail each on Tuesday by the Bisho high court.

The two Apla soldiers, Dumisane Ncamazana, 20, and Zukile Augustine Mbambo, 26, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Houshmand Anvari, 43, of Beacon Bay, Rias Razavi, 44, of King William's Town and Dr Shamam Bakhshandegi, 29, of Vincent.

Judge A E Dhlodhlo, however, convicted the men on all three counts of murder and one count of armed robbery.

He found that although they followed the orders of Apla commanders, these orders were manifestly illegal and therefore their actions were illegal.

The court heard earlier that the men lined their victims up against an inside church wall and gunned them down execution style with automatic weapons in March 1994 before escaping in a stolen Volkswagen Jetta.

Dhlodhlo sentenced each man to 25 years jail on each of the murder counts and to 10 years on the robbery charge.

He ordered however that the sentences run concurrently and therefore the effective jail term for each of the men was 25 years.

Ncamazana, now 26, is currently also serving an 18 year jail term for the attacks at DaGama textiles, the second High Gate hotel attack and the Nahoon dam attack all committed during March 1994 in the East London area.

In addition to this Ncamazana is serving 10 years for an armed robbery committed in Fort Beaufort in June 1994.

He will therefore spend an effective 53 years behind bars.

Mbambo, now 31, is also serving 18 years for the March attacks and would therefore spend an effective 43 years behind bars.

source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/1999/news0421
processed Wed 21 Apr 1999 10:03 SAST.