UPINGTON. A STORY OF TRIAL AND RECONCILIATION. ANDREA IN SOUTH AFRICA

David Philip, 1999, 1st edition. As new, unmarked. 24x15cm, 219 pp "It is the twenty-second year of Nelson Mandela's imprisonment and a country is gripped with civil unrest. A black policeman is beaten to death and his body burned during a riot. Twenty-five people are convicted of his murder; fourteen are sentenced to death. A small town is besieged by their legal trial, and one of the lawyers is brutally assassinated. This is the story of Upington Twenty-five men and women, from teenage boys to an elderly couple are all accused of the same crime: acting with a common purpose. Durbach and the other members of the legal team took the case after the death sentences had been handed down and had only a matter of weeks to sort through thousands of court papers, to get to know each of the defendants, referred to only by numbers in all court documents, and mount a proper appeal. Durbach recounts the specifics of the case, recreating trial testimony and judicial opinions, and giving the book the air of a charged courtroom drama. We meet each of the accused, hear their stories and follow the Herculean effort by this group of lawyers to save the lives of the accused-both innocent and guilty. The details surrounding the case lead us to question our own prejudices and assumptions: the fact that al twenty-five were involved in the riot that led to the death of the policeman, does that make all twenty-five guilty? Those some of the accused confessed, are the others guilty by association and proximity?.,." - Publisher's description.