South African bags life imprisonment for killing Terreblanche

30-year-old Chris Mahlangu, a black farmworker has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of South African white supremacist leader, Eugene Terreblanche in a case that has generated racial tension in the city of Ventersdorp.
To sound their solidarity for Chris Mahlangu, over a 100 protesters sang anti-white songs outside the courtroom in the city, west of Johannesburg also protesting against Mahlangu were about 20 white protesters who carried the dummy of a black man with a rope around his neck and a sign that said: “Hang Mahlangu.” while Mahlangu was leaving the court.
A second man, Patrick Ndlovu, who was a teenager at the time of the killing two years ago, was sentenced to a two-year prison sentence which means he goes free. Ndlovu was acquitted of murder but found guilty of breaking and entering with intent to steal. Initially, he was not named because of his age. He turned 18 during the trial.
Chris Mahlangu pleaded guilty but argued that he acted in self-defence in what the judge found was a violent dispute over wages.
Mahlangu was found guilty for beating Terreblanche, 69, to death with an iron in April 2010. Mahlangu said he feels he did no wrong by ridding the world of a man some called a monster.
In 1997, Terreblanche was sentenced to six years in prison for the attempted murder of a black security guard and assaulting a black gas station worker. Terreblanche’s influence in the white supremacist movement had waned by the time he died.
The judge had rejected a defense argument that Mahlangu had been sodomized by Terreblanche and acted in self-defence. Mahlangu also claimed that Terreblanche infected him with HIV.
Zola Majavu, Mahlangu’s lawyer, said on Wednesday that they are planning to appeal both the court’s findings and the sentence.
After the sentencing, the Young Communist League of South Africa released a statement calling the judgment racially biased.
Terreblanche co-founded the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known by its Afrikaans initials as the AWB, to seek an all-white republic within South Africa.