I won't go to jail ­ Terre'Blanche

PRETORIA -- Going to jail did not form part of his future expectations, Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terre'Blanche said yesterday after he was refused leave to appeal against a six-year prison sentence for attempted murder and assault.

"I am not going to prison. Truth will come out in some or other way. As a man of faith, I have no doubt that I will not be jailed for something I have not done," he said from Ventersdorp.

The general staff of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging said the ruling against their leader was an attempt to silence him.

After what was described as an urgent meeting, the body said in a statement: "This is part of a campaign against him after our successful protest meetings against the country's proposed new gun laws."

The Pretoria High Court earlier in the day rejected an application by Terre' Blanche to appeal to the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein against his conviction and sentence.

However, bail of R20000 was extended to allow him to petition the Chief Justice. The petition, his last resort, must be filed within the next 21 days.

Terre'Blanche said afterwards: "I have no doubt that a full bench of the Appeal Court will acquit me."

Judge Willie van der Merwe and Acting Judge Johan Kruger also dismissed Terre'Blanche's application to reopen the case to lead further evidence.

This is the second time they have dismissed his appeal. In an application in October state counsel Peter Luyt described his attempt to have the matter referred back to the Potchefstroom magistrate who originally convicted and sentenced him as: "a waste of time and an abuse of the legal process just so that Terre'Blanche could escape the inviting arms of jail".

Yesterday Luyt stressed that the community demanded that Terre'Blanche should finally start serving his sentence and that a petition was unlikely to succeed.

The two judges, however, said the legal process allowed for the filing of a petition and it would not be reasonable to refuse to extend Terre'Blanche's bail.

Van der Merwe said the new evidence Terre' Blanche sought to introduce did not take the matter any further.

The judge stressed that all litigation should come to an end and that litigants should not be allowed to suddenly produce "new" evidence or witnesses who claimed they had lied when they knew "where the shoe did not fit".

"Society demands that innocent persons should be freed as soon as possible, but it also demands that guilty persons should start serving their sentences as soon as possible," he said.

Terre'Blanche was sentenced to six years' imprisonment in June 1997 in the Potchefstroom Magistrate's Court for attempting to murder and assault two Ventersdorp men.

One of the men, Paul Motshabi, 29, who worked for Terre'Blanche's security firm, suffered brain damage and was described as a "vegetable" after the assault.

He was beaten with a blunt object on the head and neck and remained in a coma for some time.

Terre'Blanche was also found guilty of assaulting a petrol attendant, John Ndzima, and encouraging his dog to bite Ndzima in a toilet where he tried to hide. -- Sapa