8
-』་
making the statement containing the confession to the execution of the deceased. Again his explanation as to the reason why he
wrote the statement was unbelievable. He described a very severe
beating which did not apparently sap his will, because he still
refused to write at the dictation of the sergeant who was taking the statement. He described first of all being slapped on the
head by the sergeant who took the statement. That he refused to
make the statement. Then he described an assault by 4 or 5
people who placed something on his back like a book and who hit
:
A...
*, •
on his back a few times. He felt very painful and screamed out for
help. However, he still refused to write. He was assaulted again
and then somebody told the police officers to release him and he
then saw another sergeant who spoke to him telling him that he had
already told him to co-operate. Eventually the 2nd defendant believed they would beat him to death if he did not co-operate and
he then did as he was told. The statement was thus the product of
the sergeant's mind and not that of the 2nd defendant.
Γ.
In my view the jury was quite right to reject the story.
The 2nd defendant had claimed that the beating commenced
somewhere in the body of the statement when he was asked to write
about the killing of the deceased. However, the characters on the
statement which were written by the 2nd defendant himself are
written in a very good steady hand and are no different from those
which were written before the alleged beating.
t1
I think the jury was quite right to find both these young men
guilty. There clearly was no fight on the hillside, because the
deceased, who was their prisoner, was outnumbered and would clearly
not have been armed at this stage, whereas his captors would have
been armed and, in fact, were armed. This was clearly a case, as
the Crown contended, of an execution by way of revenge. The
deceased's neck was cut from ear to ear and he received over 30
wede hue