by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (March 14th 2013)

Significance

Today, the real and sole murderer of 20-year-old Lynette White, becomes eligible to apply for parole. Jeffrey Gafoor admits that he alone is responsible. In the early hours of Saint Valentine’s Day 1988, Lynette was stabbed over fifty times. Her throat was slit. Still Gafoor continued his vicious attack. He stabbed her breasts and chest repeatedly – at least half of the offensive injuries were to that area of her body. The attack continued after she was dead or dying. The brutality obviously went far beyond what was required to kill her. It was cruel and in my view torture. Gafoor has never explained why Lynette suffered this horrific fate. And he has not explained why he stayed silent while five innocent men stood trial for a crime he admits he committed on his own.

The Cardiff Five ((Yusef Abdullahi, John and Ronnie Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris) were charged with Lynette’s murder in December 1988. Almost two years later the Actie cousins were acquitted and the Cardiff Three were wrongfully convicted. It is now acknowledged to be one of Britain’s most notorious miscarriages of justice. It was quite obviously a sexually motivated homicide, even if that was not the label in use in the 1980s and ’90s.

Professor Dave Barclay conducted a review of the scientific evidence, which led t the vindication of the Cardiff Five and a measure of actual justice for the memory of Lynette White. He explains the significance of the crime being a sexually motivated homicide. “All but a very few are on the breasts, but sheʼs had her neck cut as well and wrists and so on”, he said. “Thereʼs a slash across the face. Itʼs a sexually motivated homicide – full stop. [I]tʼs a sexually motivated homicide and donʼt forget those stab wounds are through the puffa jacket and clothing and yet theyʼre still, theyʼre all concentrated on the breasts. Itʼs a single male sexually motivated homicide” [my emphasis].

So why the emphasis? Sexually motivated homicides are almost always committed by one man acting on his own, like Gafoor. Sometimes two vicious people combine and encourage each other to commit such crimes. Barclay and others cannot provide a single example in all the annals of crime where a murder like this was committed by five men, who made accomplices of two other sex workers, but let them live after committing such an evil crime. And all of this was allegedly done without leaving any trace, tying them to the scene or victim in total darkness. Sadly, Barclay has never given evidence about all this and more. So what would he have said if he had been given the chance? “Interestingly I give evidence more in Holland and places like that where they seem quite happy to have people give an overview”, he said. “I would have said whereʼs the evidence for any of that bullshit? I might even have said that in court”.

Evidence-led

Barclay demonstrated that the crime-scene evidence, forensic pathology, forensic psychology and blood distribution pattern was only consistent with one explanation. Lynette was murdered by one person acting on his own. That person, by his own admission and guilty plea – and evidence – was Jeffrey Charles Gafoor. For at least nine months the investigation followed the credible evidence – the crime-scene and forensic science wasn’t lying, but the original investigation took a diversion. It derailed the inquiry.

“[I]f you have two possibilities, you need very persuasive evidence to go for the least likely, so youʼve got a single male arguing with a prostitute over a deal and thatʼs what the scientist thought for nine months, or youʼve got this thing where Angela Psaila, [Mark] Grommek, at least and maybe somebody else and the five accused are all tearing round this room, sawing at peopleʼs necks and trying to cut their hands – stuff like this”, Barclay says.

“Angela Psailaʼs supposed to be asked to cut the neck or hands, I canʼt remember, or the wrist, so thatʼs so inherently improbable on every possible level: psychologically, practically and just they couldnʼt do it in that dark room without leaving footwear and finger-marks in blood and if you actually consider something I did after I totalled up the number of people that were supposed to have held the bloody knife”, he continues. “Thatʼs four people, so there are four people with blood on their hands and theyʼre going out without leaving finger-marks in blood or whatever, so I think that was a major thing. Occamʼs Razor is a thing that we use a lot in forensic science, ʻin all probability, the simplest explanation is the correct oneʼ, and you have to be really sure that the simplest explanation isnʼt correct and that was something that was not done either”.

The Cost of Silence

The methods that Barclay used in his review and subsequent work on this case were available in the 1980s and ’90s. There was no reason for this miscarriage of justice to be allowed to occur. Jeffrey Gafoor was the one person who knew for certain that not only were the Cardiff Five innocent, but that they were suffering a grave injustice for his crime. He chose to stay silent and let their lives be destroyed Ronnie Actie and Yusef Abdullahi both died before reaching fifty. John Actie, Stephen Miller and Tony Paris still endure the unjustifiable whispering campaigns in a case that disgraces justice. Meanwhile, the real killer, becomes eligible to apply for parole today after completing a tariff that was incorrectly applied and failed miserably to reflect the crimes Gafoor committed.

There is no excuse for the lives of the Cardiff Five and their families to have been wrecked. There is no excuse for Lynette’s family to have been denied justice for so long. While Gafoor is not responsible for justice miscarrying, his cowardly decision to refuse to take any responsibility for his crime when it mattered destroyed several lives. Do the courses and rehabilitative exercises that he experiences in prison to prepare him for parole bear this in mind? If not, why not? The real and sole killer received an inappropriately lenient tariff that further insults all the victims of this tawdry injustice – one that simply won’t go away until justice is allowed to reign once and for all.

The Colombian scientists listening with disbelief at how the various injustices occurred.

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (February 11th 2016)

Too Little

Charles Sebesta will never practice law again. Good. The prosecutor secured the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. Anthony Graves spent 18 years in prison – sentenced to death for setting a fire that killed six people. Last year Texas’ licencing board withdrew Sebesta’s licence over his conduct in Graves’ case.

The Board was satisfied that Sebesta had breached its rules. Before prosecuting Graves, against whom there was no physical evidence, Sebesta had convicted Robert Carter of the same crimes. Sebesta ‘persuaded’ Carter to say that Graves was his accomplice. He wasn’t and a day before he was due to give evidence against Graves, Carter told Sebesta that Graves was not his accomplice – he had acted alone.

Armed with this clearly exculpatory evidence Sebesta concealed it. Even now Sebesta refuses to take responsibility for his actions, which included strong-arming an alibi witness for Graves into not testifying by claiming that the witness was a suspect in the murders and could be indicted. That was false as Sebesta knew. The witness refused to testify.

The jury that convicted Graves knew none of this. Sebesta claims that Graves was rightly convicted, despite the total lack of credible evidence and shocking methods used by Sebesta. With staggering chutzpah Sebesta acts the victim claiming that he has been targeted.

Too Late

In 2006 Graves won an appeal – a retrial was ordered, but in 2010 a special prosecutor concluded that there was credible evidence against him. Sebesta’s conduct turned full circle. Once they had helped secure the conviction of an innocent man – now they condemned the prosecutor.

Sebesta was disbarred in July 2015. He chose to appeal. “My opinion is that we presented the evidence we had and felt like it was sufficient”, Sebesta is reported as saying in the Huffington Post. He has concerns about a process he believes has pursued him unfairly.

Among those who disagree is the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, which upheld the decision to disbar him on February 8th. It said that Sebesta had ‘unclean hands’.

Its decision to act against a prosecutor whose use of egregious methods to secure convictions at any price is to be welcomed, but given the finding of the Board, why hasn’t Sebesta been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice?

And when will those responsible for outrageous and preventable miscarriages of justice like that suffered by Graves be held accountable for their suffering too? Should he not be charged with the American equivalent of grievous bodily harm for the trauma endured by Graves? And in this case, Graves risked judicial murder for a crime he did not commit. Why isn’t that considered to be attempted murder?

Vindication

Almost 20 years ago Zandra Mitchley and teenagers Shaun Nel and Claire Silberbauer were murdered in a notorious armed attack on a car approaching Eikenhof, which is near Johannesburg. All the occupants were white people with no connection to the Apartheid state.

The attack shook the country. It happened as South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to majority rule was taking shape. If its aim was to derail that process it almost succeeded, as the police and prosecutor tried to make political capital from the tragedy, accusing and falsely convicting three innocent men – men they knew were innocent.

The African National Congress and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe had ended their armed struggle against Apartheid. This case was used to try to claim that the ANC were negotiating in bad faith – they were not. The interests of justice were disgracefully sacrificed to shameful political expediency and the perceived interests of a criminal regime – a crime against humanity, no less. In a system pock-marked by terrible affronts to justice this remains one of its worst ever miscarriages of justice.

It is the clearest of South Africa’s vindication cases – a difference-making travesty of justice that could and should have ensured that the new South Africa, the so-called Rainbow Nation, has a criminal justice system that is the envy of the world. Instead apathy, cynicism and political opportunism reign in a sorry tale of justice betrayed again and again.

Shameful

Three men were wrongly convicted of the three murders and the attempted murder of Norman Mitchley and Craig Lamprecht in the Eikrenhof attack. Siphiwe James Bholo, Sipho Gavin and Boy Ndweni (the Eikenhof Three) had strong alibis that they were in Wesselsbron, about 380 kilometres away when the attack occurred. It mattered not a whit to investigators and South Africa’s criminal justice system past and present.

Alibi witnesses were shamefully bullied. Perjury was committed. There was colossal non-disclosure of vital evidence that not only proved the Eikenhof Three innocent, but that the whole case was a gross conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. It was well known that the Eikenhof Three were members of the African National Congress (ANC) and that the attack had been organised and executed by the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) – the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC).

This information and more was ruthlessly suppressed. But even after it emerged the South African criminal justice system kept the lid on the scandal, denying innocent men the clear acknowledgement of vindication that had been proved beyond reasonable doubt – any really. Despite a plethora of causes for concern there has been no investigation of the notorious case to establish what went wrong and prevent repetition to date, let alone criminal sanctions of those responsible.

Precedent and Necessity

The convictions of the Eikenhof Three were eventually quashed on appeal. A retrial was ordered, but it has never taken place and almost certainly never will. It leaves an element of doubt about their innocence where no credible doubt exists. Their case is too important to be left in limbo. It is part of a wretched pattern of abuse of justice, even in vindication cases like this.

The case of the Eikenhof Three is the difference-making case for South Africa. During the transition from Apartheid the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was established. Among those who applied for amnesty was Phila Dolo. He ordered the attack. A raid on a PAC (Pan Africanist Congress of Azania) ‘safe-house’ in Botswana yielded documents including Dolo’s report on the Eikenhof attack.

There is no doubt that it was an attack carried out by the APLA. Even weapons used in the attack were linked to Dolo and therefore the APLA. Gavin and Bholo had been sentenced to death and Ndweni to 17 years – only his youth saved him from a sentence of death for a crime the authorities knew full well none of the Eikenhof Three committed.

Despite a change in government – a landslide in favour of three innocent activists’ party the ANC – they remained in prison. Even after the TRC reported, giving amnesty to Dolo, meaning it believed his account of the Eikenhof attack, the Eikenhof Three were not immediately freed. Absurdly it was the PAC who picketed the jail they were held in, demanding their release.

And now over a decade after they were released on appeal with a retrial ordered they remain cheated of even an explanation of why they were deemed expendable casualties of a war that had ended and of a peace process that has yet to deliver justice and an apology to them. It is the very least that they deserve. In fact, it is the very least that the new South Africa deserves.

Injury to Insult

The Eikenhof Three are still waiting for apologies for what they went through almost two decades after they were subjected to a terrifying ordeal that could have ended on the gallows for two of them, even though police knew beyond doubt who was really responsible for at least four of the six years they were in prison for a crime they did not commit.

Siphiwe Bholo, Sipho Gavin and Titi Boy Ndweni were framed for the murder of Zandra Mitchley, Shaun Nel and Claire Silberbauer and the attempted murder of Norman Mitchley and Craig Lamprecht as Apartheid was coming to an end. The Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA) quickly claimed responsibility for the Eikenhof attack, which occurred on March 19^th 1993.

The current President of the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC), Letlapa Mphahlele had documents verifying this seized by police when he was arrested in a raid in Lesotho in 1995. Despite this the Eikenhof Three remained in prison until 1999. Shamefully, these documents have gone missing along with much of the original docket.

“The time we have wasted before in prison, nothing can buy that, but I think there’s a lot that the State should have done for us”, Ndweni told me exclusively. “There are a lot of programmes that they could have done, like for instance, if you realise that you have wasted somebody’s time, you can assist that person. For example, take him to school and make sure that he has a roof over his head. Those are some of the things that they should have done. We had to get them for ourselves”.

Regret

However while the State and police have not apologised at least one organisation regrets what they endured. “On behalf of myself and the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, I hereby express our sincerest regret that you were unjustly arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced following the Eikenhof Operation of March 19^th 1993”, Mphahlele wrote to each of the Eikenhof Three in December 2010.

The current President of the PAC and its only MP continued. “The operation was planned and executed by members of the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA), the military wing of the PAC. We were taken aback when you and two of your colleagues were arrested and suffered for something you certainly knew nothing about. Although it is a long time since the incident took place, I hope you will accept our humble gesture of regret over what you subsequently went through”.

A Welcome Gesture

It was accepted by the Eikenhof Three. Disgracefully, it remains the only apology, or even expression of regret, they have ever received over their ordeal. “Regarding PAC and APLA I don’t have a problem about them, like they have apologised to us for us being convicted of their deeds,” Ndweni told me. “With regards to justice system, I think there’s a lot that needs to be done about it”. His sentiments are echoed by Gavin and Bholo, although the latter says the PAC don’t owe him an apology.

“I do accept their apologies”, Mr Bholo said. “Whatever happened then happened during struggle, so they were fighting a just cause … according to them they were doing the right thing. I don’t have a problem with their apologies. In fact, I would say, they don’t owe me any apology, because they are not responsible for my arrest. The only thing that was supposed to happen was the proper investigation and the proper presentation of the case in court and it could have resulted in the right people being arrested”.

The statement of regret by Mr Mphahlele remains the only apology that the Eikenhof Three have ever received for their ordeal, even though there is no doubt that they were completely innocent of any involvement in the Eikenhof attack.

Bholo calls for apologies from those he holds responsible. “They have to tell us exactly what happened, including the government, I would say so, because there are different heads to that – the head of Justice and the head of Safety and Security”, he said. “The ANC, they don’t, but the Justice Department, they do”.

Nevertheless, Ndweni believes that the African National Congress (ANC) hasn’t done enough to help them, but the apologies he wants most are not from them. “I would say the police, the prosecuting authority, the witnesses who gave the false evidence about us”, he says. Ndweni says that the Justice Minister owes him an apology too and that he is ‘disappointed’ that he has not received such an apology.

The twentieth anniversary of the Eikenhof attack is less than a week away. Even now it seems sorry is the hardest word to say.

Wronged

Mpagi Edward Edmary

Mpagi Edward Edmary was living a nightmare not of his making. He had survived the tyrannical régimes of Milton Obote and Idi Amin only to fall victim to a despicable injustice. He was convicted of the worst type of offence – one that had not occurred. He was alleged to have murdered William Wandyaka. His cousin Fred Masembe had also been wrongly convicted in April 1982.

But this was no ordinary injustice. Wandyaka had not been murdered by Edmary or Masembe and it was no accident either. Unbelievably, Wandyaka had manipulated the law to further a dispute with Edmaryʼs family. It beggars belief that Wandyaka was in fact alive and well throughout this shameful miscarriage of justice.

Less than a year and a half after they were convicted of the crime they had not committed – they had believed that these things did not happen – the pair had lost their appeal too. The death sentence – a mandatory one – had been confirmed. They applied for the prerogative of mercy, but no mercy was displayed either. And to make matters worse malaria had considerably weakened Masembe. Denied medication he died in August 1985.

Harsh Realities

Edmary faced a huge fight on his own. Edmary had to take on and beat the utterly corrupt system that had wronged him, but he had some hope. The régime that had dispensed rotten justice had failed again. Obote II, was if anything, more brutal and corrupt than his first government.

A month before Masembeʼs tragic death Obote was once again overthrown by a military coup led by Brigadier Bazilio Olara-Okello and General Tito Okello. They established a Military Council which lasted a few months before Yoweri Museveniʼs National Resistance Army swept it from power. The Military Council did nothing to address the injustice suffered by Edmary and Masembe, even though they were victims of a corrupt judicial process.

Mpagi Edward Edmary at the school

Obote had already fled to Tanzania and then to Zambia. Meanwhile, Oboteʼs Vice President, Paulo Muwanga, would soon taste the harsh realities of prison life. After the coup he was arrested. Museveni came to power in 1986. He has been in power in Uganda ever since. Muwanga died in 1991. His fall from power had been catastrophic.

After Museveni came to power Muwangaʼs victims voiced their discontent. It resulted in Muwangaʼs arrest and later convictions. Muwanga was the star witness before the Uganda Human Rights Commission under Justice Arthur Oder in 1988. He defended his record. Sadly, Justice Oderʼs Commission did not consider the appalling abuse of the human rights of Fred Masembe and the ongoing injustice that Edmary had to fight without his cousin by his side any longer.

A Lone Furrow

Nobody had committed the ʻmurderʼ that Masembe had died over and Edmary was enduring a living death, wondering when the executioners would come for him. They were both innocent and the case was no accident either. Edmaryʼs amazing story that not only were he and Masembe innocent, but that there had been no crime, was proved true.

Edmary was adamant that Wandyakaʼs family had taken a callous revenge on his for the dispute by framing him and his cousin for a murder that never happened. Wandyaka, he insisted, was in fact alive and well, savouring this inhuman revenge. Edmary claims that he even saw Wandyaka attend the trial, relishing their ordeal.

Mpagi Edward Edmary

It took many years and considerable luck, but eventually a Presidential Commission established that Edmary was innocent. There was no means to adequately right the wrong. Wandyaka was alive and well. It was clearly unconscionable to keep Edmary in jail, so on July 20th 2000 – over 19 years after his ordeal began – Mpagi Edward Edmary was released by Presidential Pardon.

A Change is Gonna Come

It remains an egregious miscarriage of justice that shames Uganda despite Museveniʼs government belatedly putting it right. Oboteʼs criminal justice system had proved itself to be venal, corrupt and vicious. It also allowed itself to be used in a dispute. It allowed two innocent men to have their lives wrecked or taken when their ʻvictimʼ was in fact alive and well throughout.

This is Ugandaʼs difference-making injustice – the case from which a competent and just criminal justice system can emerge through its own Truth and Justice Commission. Uganda must seize that chance and shame those jurisdictions that talk about truth and justice, but fail to deliver, despite a plethora of worthy cases.

It must do so in the best interests of the Ugandan people. They deserve to know that the ordeals suffered by Fred Masembe and Mpagi Edward Edmary were not in vain and that from the entrails of this abominable injustice a fair and just system system will emerge. The Fitted-In Project is committed to playing its part in facilitating that process in Uganda.

For more information on the school that is Mpagiʼs passion and how to help him keep his dream alive see http://dreamoneworld.org/