South African policemen in dog attack case seek bail

PRETORIA, South Africa (Reuters) -- Six white South African policemen accused of setting dogs onto black job-hunters in a videotaped attack billed as a training exercise appeared in court Friday to appeal for bail.

State prosecutor Christo Roberts opposed bail, citing the safety of the six amid outrage against them among many black and white South Africans, but lawyers representing the police dog unit members denied the risk and demanded their release.

Roberts said there was also a danger that the accused could intimidate Andries Jacobs, identified during the hearing as the source of the videotape screened last week.

The court heard that Jacobs had stolen the video from one of the accused.

An initial charge of attempted murder was withdrawn and the men were charged with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, extortion and kidnapping.

The video, broadcast by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), outraged many black and white South Africans and triggered the most intense national debate on racism since the end of white rule in 1994.

Senior Superintendent Ettienne Vinyl Viljoen told the court that police had received thousands of messages by telephone, fax and electronic mail threatening the lives of the policemen, alleged to be those seen in the video laughing and encouraging their dogs to maul three black victims.

One policeman in the video addressed the camera, saying: "This is a training exercise."

The video shows the three black men being savaged in turn by between one and three German shepherd police dogs, some on leashes and some free. The victims were beaten when they tried to ward off the dogs or protect themselves.

Viljoen said the anger and hatred triggered by the broadcast of the video raised a real fear that the policemen would be attacked or even killed.

About 30 protesters marched to the court with placards demanding an end to racism and the prosecution of the six men. Scores of police, many with automatic rifles, guarded the courthouse and a dozen armed officers were inside the court.

The six policemen charged, who appeared in court, are Jacobus Petrus Smith, 31, Lodewyk Christiaan Koch, 32, Nicolaas Kenneth Loubser, 27, Dino Guiotto, 27, Robert Benjamin Henzen, 32, and Eugene Werner Truter, 28.

"If the accused walk out of this court now, my experience and the mood in the community leads me to believe they would not reach the pavement before the community exacts revenge," Viljoen said.

He said investigators had identified the three victims of the January 1998 attack and placed them in a witness protection program. Their scars had been examined and photographed, and matched the wounds noted in hospital records of the outpatient treatment they received on the day.

Viljoen said three of the policemen, who were suspended without pay on the day the video was broadcast, had since resigned from the police service. He did not identify them.

Lawyers for the accused said there was significant public support for the six and that they deserved the same legal protection and freedom given to anyone else.

Lawyer Kobus Lowies said the accused, including Truter -- who filmed the hourlong attack on three Mozambicans picked up while looking for work in Johannesburg -- had a realistic hope of being let off with a fine and could handle their own security.

Lowies said Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of South African ex-president Nelson Mandela, was fined for kidnapping and assault during the 1980s black uprising against white apartheid rule.

"There is a chance that, like Winnie Mandela, if the same system of justice works for black and white, the accused might get a fine, like Winnie," he said.

Madikizela-Mandela was convicted in connection with the kidnapping of 14-year-old activist Stompie Seipei, who was found murdered near her home. She was sentenced to six years in jail, but the sentence was reduced on appeal to a fine.

Lowies said one of the accused policemen had been given a petition of support signed by many thousands of people and that a fund had been set up to pay for their defense.

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