How a priest was set up

by Editor · May 16, 2001

The news of Fr Boniface Mashiane�s acquittal on appeal of charges of robbery is gratifying.

Fr Mashiane was convicted by a Pietersburg court in 1999. On appeal, the High Court exonerated the priest, going as far as to suggest that the charges may well have been trumped up.

Indeed, when a reporter of The Southern Cross, Alex Economou (now with the Cape Times) investigated the story by telephone two years ago, he found good reason to believe in Fr Mashiane�s innocence. His investigations came to a sudden halt when enquiries were inexplicably stonewalled in certain quarters.

If the charges against Fr Mashiane were in fact fabricated�and the court�s hint to that effect as well as Bishop Nkumishe�s account of the case coincide with The Southern Cross� initial suspicions�then some questions need to be asked.

Chief among these is this: how was it possible that the court could find a man guilty on the strength of the testimony of state witnesses which the judges on appeal found inconsistent and unsatisfactory�again an aspect of the case that reflects the impression gained by our reporter (investigating with resources much more limited than those available to the court, and without the benefit of proximity to the scene of the case)?

How could the court convict Fr Mashiane when the “witness” who “identified” him as one of three robbers did not testify, and none of the stolen property was found in the priest�s possession? Indeed, how could a trial have gone ahead in first place under such circumstances?

Is it beyond the realms of the possible that among the factors contributing to Fr Mashiane�s conviction was that of race: the word of white witnesses against that of the black accused, a priest even?

For Fr Mashiane, the ordeal is at last over. Yet he is not the first and will, alas, not be the last victim of justice gone awry.

For the sake of South Africa�s justice system, what is needed now is an inquiry into how the 1999 trial could have got things so terribly wrong. For this, the case of Fr Mashiane may serve as a good departure point.