Lawyers in South Africa are threatening legal action on behalf of 270 miners who have been charged murder after 34 of their colleagues were shot dead by police. They say the arrested miners must be released by Sunday or they will apply to the high court to order their release. Earlier, the justice minister Jeff Radebe asked prosecutors to explain the murder charges as Karen Allen reports from Johannesburg.
南非律师威胁要代表被指控以谋杀罪的270名矿工寻求法律诉讼,此前,这些矿工的34名同事被警察开枪打死。他们要求必须在周日之前释放被捕矿工,否则要申请最高法院释放他们。早些时候,司法部长杰夫·拉德贝请求检察官解释谋杀指控。凯伦·阿伦在约翰内斯堡报道。
The justice minister Jeff Radebe said the decision to charge the protesting miners with causing the death of their own colleagues had led to shock, panic and confusion across South Africa. Prosecutors have charged 270 demonstrators with murder under the common purpose doctrine, an apartheid era law used in crowd situations when there is uncertainty about blame. But the governing ANC is trying to distant itself from what critics say is a politically motivated decision, which appears to contradict TV footage of the violence broadcast at the time.
司法部长杰夫·拉德贝说,指控这些抗议矿工以谋杀同事这一决定令整个南非人感到震惊、恐慌和迷茫。检察官以共同目的的原则指控270名抗议者以谋杀罪,而这一原则是在种族隔离时期的法律,适用于无法确定罪责的集体事件。但执政的国民大会党试图将自己与批评者所谓的政治动机的决定撇清开,该决定显然与当时播放的有关暴动的电视视频相违背。