Percy Yutar: Difference between revisions

Yutar attended the [[University of Cape Town]] on a scholarship, and in 1937 received his doctorate in law. But despite his education, given the prevalence of [[antisemitism]] in South Africa at the time, he had to work, for five years, in a lowly legal position at the post office.<ref name="Scotsman">{{cite news |url=http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1039&id=791052002 |title=Percy Yutar |publisher=''[[The Scotsman]]'' | location=Edinburgh |date=23 July 2002}}</ref> In 1940, he was appointed a junior state [[prosecutor]] and eventually become Deputy Attorney General, first in the [[Orange Free State Province|Orange Free State]], and later in the [[Transvaal Province|Transvaal]].<ref name=virginia>{{cite journal |first=Emma |last=Rathbone |date=Fall 2013 |title=Mandela's Prosecutor |url=http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2013/fall/rathbone-mandela/ |journal=Virginia Quarterly Review |publisher= |volume= 89 |issue=4 |pages=158–168 |doi= |accessdate=2014-01-02}}</ref>▼

==The Rivonia trial and support for apartheid==▼

Yutar was the prosecutor in the 1963 [[Rivonia Trial]] against [[Nelson Mandela]] and 9 others. Yutar charged the defendants with [[sabotage]] and [[conspiracy (criminal)|conspiracy]], instead of the more serious crime of [[treason]]. Mandela and 7 co-defendants were convicted, while two were acquitted. During sentencing, Yutar argued that the full weight of the law should be brought to bear on the defendants, but did not specify whether he believed the defendants should be executed or sentenced to prison. Since the death penalty was rarely used for sabotage and conspiracy, Justice [[Quartus de Wet]] sentenced the defendants to life in prison. Anti-apartheid activists condemned the guilty verdict, but were relieved that Mandela had not been charged with treason and would not be executed. <ref name=nytimes>{{cite news |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/07/world/south-africa-s-supreme-court-abolishes-death-penalty.html |title=South Africa's Supreme Court Abolishes Death Penalty |publisher=The New York Times | location=New York | date=7 June 1995 | accessdate=1 May 2015}}</ref>▼

Mandela and 7 others were sentenced to [[life imprisonment]] for [[sabotage]]; two were acquitted. Yutar accused the defendants of telling lies to the world that Africans in South Africa were oppressed. In truth, he said, Africans were peaceful, law-abiding and loyal to the regime.<ref name=guardian>{{cite news |first=Gerald |last=Shaw |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/jul/19/guardianobituaries2 |title=Percy Yutar, Obituary |publisher=The Guardian | location=London | date=19 July 2002 | accessdate=22 May 2010}}</ref>▼

When Mandela was taken in chains from Pretoria to [[Robben Island]] to serve his life sentence, Yutar was lionised in the media as South Africa’s saviour, the defender of civilisation against the forces of darkness. He encouraged this image at every opportunity by stoking white fears of an imminent bloodbath.<ref name=scotsman /> Yutar was regarded as a true patriot by the then minister of justice, [[John Vorster]], and lauded as a scourge of the liberation movements, particularly the [[African National Congress]], which he denounced as a communist-dominated terrorist organisation that had misled the black masses. He worked closely with the security police, who held him in high regard.<ref name=guardian /> [[Benjamin Pogrund]], former deputy-editor of [[The Rand Daily Mail]] in [[Johannesburg]], confirmed that Yutar "was loved by the security police. They told me they loved him because he did their bidding. What they wanted, he did, including all his histrionics in court."<ref name=chronicle>{{cite news |last=Easterman |first=Daniel |date=2013-12-25 |title=Mandela and me: journalist's insights into the anti-apartheid struggle |url=http://www.thejc.com/node/114327 |newspaper=The Jewish Chronicle |location=London |publisher= |accessdate=2014-01-02}}</ref> Yutar was said to be indifferent towards [[Apartheid]].<ref name="Scotsman"/>▼

Years later, after the end of apartheid, Yutar stated that he believed that he had in fact saved the lives of the Rivonia defendants, by charging them with sabotage instead of treason. In his last recorded interview he stated: "If I had merely even asked for the death penalty, the judge would have granted. . . . They would have been named martyrs and that would have led to a hellish revolution, and a bloody civil war. And I have not the slightest doubt that I acted correctly, and saved this country." But [[George Bizos]], one of the defence lawyers at the trial, called this a lie.<ref name=virginia />▼

Yutar was a controversial figure whose "vengeful and forbidding image as a relentless opponent of the anti-apartheid struggle contrasted with his private persona as a gentle and devoted husband and father, who loved classical music".<ref name=guardian />▼

For about 11 years Yutar was chairman of the United Hebrew Congregation, which was a collection of [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox]] synagogues in Johannesburg.<ref name=chronicle />▼