Local News
Security tight at Boeremag sentencing─── 12:55 Mon, 28 Oct 2013
Pretoria - Security is tight at the high court in Pretoria where sentencing of 20 right-wing extremists convicted of high treason for a plot to kill former president Nelson Mandela and drive blacks out of the country started this morning.
Police are carrying out body searches of the public.
The "Boeremag" organisation had planned a right-wing coup in 2002 to overthrow the post-apartheid government.
The trial lasted almost a decade until the organisation's members were convicted in August last year - the first guilty verdicts for treason since the end of apartheid in 1994.
All 20 accused were convicted of treason, but only five of murder and the plot to kill Mandela.
The state is seeking life sentences for the group's leaders and bomb specialists, and 10 to 15 years in prison for the other defendants.
Report by Sapa
