March 2001 Africa News Headlines

Thursday, March 8, 2001 - Web posted at 7:13:47 AM GMT

Terre Blanche heads back to jail

JOHANNESBURG - A South African court yesterday upheld neo-Nazi leader Eugene Terre Blanche's 1997 conviction for the attempted murder of a black security guard.

Terre Blanche, once seen as the embodiment of extreme white opposition to black rule, is facing six years in prison for the 1996 attack on Paul Motshabi which left the victim brain-damaged."

"This was a vicious assault on a defenceless person," Appeal Court Judge Werner Vivier was quoted as saying in a report by the South African Press Association.

Terre Blanche was found guilty in 1997 of hitting Motshabi over the head and neck with a blunt object.

Motshabi was in a coma for a month after the attack and suffered permanent brain damage.

The burly 60-year-old leader of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) rallied thousands to his cause in the early 1990s, threatening to destabilise the country's first democratic election in 1994, which saw Nelson Mandela become its first black president.

- Nampa-Reuters

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