Court Denies Job Restoration for Apartheid-Era Cop

Special to the NNPA from GIN
(GIN) – South Africa's Constitutional Court this week rejected a bid by an apartheid-era cop to be restored to his former job.
The former security police bomber, Wybrand Du Toit, had previously received amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for his role in the killings of the Motherwell Four – three Black security policemen and an "askari police informer" whose car was blown up in December 1989.
His sentence of 15 years was dismissed by the amnesty but he remained fired from the force.
Chief Justice Pius Langa said the amnesties were made to lift the burden of crime from the shoulders of the perpetrators while also bringing some closure to victims. But amnesty was not meant to restore to victims what they lost, or to restore perpetrators to positions they had lost, he ruled.