The former South African president, Mr P.W. Botha, has been granted a reprieve against charges that could have sent him to jail. A senior legal official ruled that a subpoena issued against him by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was legally defective.
Mr Botha (81) defied a subpoena to appear before a TRC hearing in Cape Town yesterday on the operations of the state security council during his time as prime minister and, later, as president during the last phase of white rule.
The commission chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu - who is suffering from cancer - then walked several blocks from the TRC office to the office of the Cape Attorney-General, Mr Frank Kahn, to lay charges against Mr Botha.
The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act provides for an unspecified fine or imprisonment for up to two years or both for defiance of an order to appear before the TRC. However, Mr Kahn ruled that the subpoena was legally defective. While stipulating the venue and date of the hearing, it did specify the time, as required by the law.
"I therefore declined to prosecute in the matter," Mr Kahn told journalists. But while he had protected Mr Botha's rights, he would treat the former president as he would anyone else if a legally valid subpoena was issued, he said, adding: "No one will be regarded as above the law."
A new subpoena was delivered later yesterday to Mr Botha's home in the Eastern Cape by TRC officials. Mr Botha refused to accept the subpoena and it was handed over to security guards at his house.
The new subpoena requires Mr Botha to report to the TRC Cape Town office at 9 a.m. on December 19th.
A copy was given to Mr Botha's lawyer, Mr Ernst Penzhorn, who himself delivered Mr Botha's written replies to questions about the state security council which had been put to him earlier by Archbishop Tutu.
Last month, Mr Botha publicly declared his intention of defying the subpoena summoning him to yesterday's hearing, at which the former Defence Minister, Gen Magnus Malan, testified.
Mr Botha accused the TRC of attempting to drive a wedge between Afrikaners and declared that he would not go on his knees before it to beg forgiveness. "The Afrikaner only goes on his knees before God," he said.
Debate, meanwhile, continued over an apology by Ms Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at the end of a marathon TRC hearing into allegations implicating her in serious crimes.
Responding to an impassioned plea of Archbishop Tutu, she expressed "deep sorrow" that "things went horribly wrong".
Her apology, however, was characterised as "enigmatic" by many observers as she neither acknowledged responsibility for the events, including murder and torture, surrounding her entourage, nor retracted her insistence that her accusers were liars, one and all.
The TRC investigations head, Mr Dumisa Ntsebeza, said: "That was no apology." But Archbishop Tutu was more generous. "Let us not snuff out a flickering wick," he said.