Biehls Are Briefed on Progress of South African Murder Trial

CAPE TOWN, South Africa —  The South African justice minister and former boss of slain American scholar Amy Biehl briefed her family Tuesday on the trial of the three youths charged in her murder.

Dullah Omar, who as the former director of the University of the Western Cape’s Community Law Center oversaw work Biehl did on the rights of women and children, spoke to her mother, Linda, and sister, Kim, about legal issues surrounding the trial and amnesty laws he is drafting.

The woman from Newport Beach, who was white, was stabbed and beaten to death by a mob of black youths shouting anti-white slogans while she was driving friends home to Guguletu township last Aug. 25, days before she was to return home.

The 26-year-old Biehl came to South Africa as a Fulbright scholar.

Describing Biehl’s family as “remarkably generous,” Omar said: “They do not want revenge, they only expect that justice should be done.”

Omar told the Biehls that he is writing legislation enabling perpetrators of politically motivated crimes to seek amnesty from prosecution and punishment. There has been speculation that Biehl’s killers could qualify for amnesty.

After a hearing Monday, the trial was recessed until Aug. 31, when Judge Gerald Friedman will announce whether statements the defendants made to police can be admitted as evidence.

Defense lawyers contend that the defendants were assaulted and coerced into making statements implicating them in the murder.

Mongezi Manquina, 21; Mzikhona Nofemela, 22; and Vusumzi Ntamo, 22; all members of the black nationalist Pan Africanist Congress, have pleaded innocent to charges of murder, robbery and public violence in Biehl’s death.

A 16-year-old boy will be tried separately.

Three other men accused in the case were released on the first day of the Supreme Court hearing last November when a witness refused to testify against them. A friend who was in the car with Biehl when she was attacked testified against the defendants but then recanted after she was threatened. Two other young witnesses have failed to testify because of alleged intimidation.