SOUTH AFRICA: Four school friends from an affluent white suburb of Pretoria were sentenced yesterday to 12 years in jail for hunting down and murdering a black man during a night of drinking that went out of control.
The so-called "Waterkloof Four", named after the plush neighbourhood where the group went to school and played rugby, were described by the presiding judge as "cowards" who had failed to show remorse.
Aged 15 to 16 at the time of the murder in December 2001, Christoff Becker, Frikkie du Preez, Gert van Schalkwyk and Reinach Tiedt were sentenced to a further two months for assaulting a second man who - like the first - was allegedly attacked because of the colour of his skin.
The case, which lifted the lid on a macho culture of heavy drinking and violence within the white teenage community, horrified a nation that has worked hard to improve race relations since the end of the apartheid era.
The court heard the teenagers had been roaming around the neighbourhood in two cars belonging to their parents with a set of carving knives and a hammer stowed inside.
Finding the four guilty of murdering the unidentified man, who was believed to have been homeless, magistrate Len Kotze said "this was an inter-racial incident which had emotions running high in the local community and elsewhere".
The judge rejected the defendants' claims that they had carried out the killing in self-defence, believing the victim was a burglar.
Critical to the conviction of the four was the testimony of a number of other teenagers who had been partying in a Pretoria nightclub with them. One of the witnesses said he had been travelling in a car with du Preez, who told the driver: "Stop, there's a Kaffir [ a derogatory term for a black African]".
Du Preez reportedly walked up to the man and hit him in the face before running back to the car. He was later joined by the other three accused, who chased the man and assaulted him again.
The four returned to their cars and shortly afterwards stopped to confront a second man in a park. On the evidence, Becker and Van Schalkwyk were seen making "stabbing movements" towards him, whereafter the entire group set upon him "like a loose scrum on a rugby field".
A state witness said Du Preez had asked him, "Do you know Naas Botha [ the famous Springbok flyhalf]?" just before kicking the man in the face. Tiedt then hit the man over the head with a hammer.
When three of the accused returned to the park later, searching for the hammer and knives they had discarded, the man pleaded for help, but he was kicked again. At the trial hearing in 2005, magistrate Kotze dismissed Becker's evidence as lies, remarking on his "astounding arrogance".
He described the four's actions as so inherently dangerous "that even the most stupid man would foresee [ the victim's] death".
Adding to the public's sense of outrage was the manner in which the four had posed together, smiling for photographs in the early stages of the trial - behaviour that was perceived as defiant.
The smartly dressed four subsequently kept their distance from one another at the court, and yesterday there was no show of bravado as they struggled to maintain their composure when the sentence was read out.
Lawyers for the four argued that they had already suffered greatly from the case. Van Schalkwyk's dreams of playing rugby for his country had been shattered because of the trial, the court heard.
Granting leave to appeal, the judge said he would have imposed a tougher sentence if the accused had been adults. In a move that surprised some, the four were released on bail pending an appeal hearing.