Three ANC members are sentenced to death

Three African National Congress members, Telle Simon Mogoerane, Jerry Semano Mosololi, and Marcus Thabo Motaung, were sentenced to death for separate attacks at the Moroka and Orlando Police stations in Soweto and the Wonderboom Police station in Pretoria in which four policemen were killed. The three, known as the "Moroka Three", were charged with high treason and twenty other alternative charges, including the attack at New Canada railway station and Central Park electric sub-station. They pleaded not guilty and cited police brutality during the 1976 student uprising as cause for their actions against the police in Soweto and Wonderboom. Justice D. J. Curlewis ignored evidence of police brutality and passed a guilty verdict and imposed a death penalty on these men. He labelled them compulsive liars and rejected their testimonies detailing their torture. The trial also revealed that South African medical professionals were complicit in police brutality and at times collaborated by giving the police permission to take away Motaung who was shot three times. Dr. S. M. Snyman claimed that Motaung was still in a fit state to resume interrogation. The "Moroka Three" were executed on the 9 June 1984.