Items

• 18-Month Sentence on Brutus

  [Full Text]: "Denis Vincent Brutus, president of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment today by a Johannesburg magistrate on four charges of contravening a banning order and one of escaping from custody. Brutus was the centre of a diplomatic incident last September after he was shot down in a busy Johannesburg street by a police warrant officer as he made a dash for freedom. Brutus was banned and confined to the magisterial area of Johannesburg last year after his return from Europe where he had made representations about discrimination in Olympic teams. He broke his ban and went to Swaziland from where he intended to return to Europe to approach Olympic headquarters in Switzerland, but after crossing the border into Mozambique he was arrested by Portuguese secret police and returned to South Africa. Brutus said at the time and repeated in court today, while pleading in mitigation of sentence, that he had had a valid Rhodesian Federation passport. During the diplomatic row at that time Pretoria submitted that Brutus was a South African citizen. The magistrate ruled that Brutus's contention that his escape bid was made to draw attention to his situation was not altogether valid, but the court would take into account that he had been wounded, which was a partial penalty for his offence.