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Teen gets 169 years for racist killings

By Africa correspondent Andrew Geoghegan

Posted November 22, 2008 00:39:00
Updated November 22, 2008 06:44:00

A white South African teenager has been sentenced to four life terms in prison for the racially motivated murder of four black people, including a boy and a baby, earlier this year.

Johan Nel was 18 years old when he went on a shooting rampage in a black community in the north-west of the country in January this year.

Among his victims were a 10-year-old boy and a three-month old baby.

Nel pleaded guilty to the four murders and the attempted murder of 11 other people, and has been sentenced to a total of 169 years in prison.

During his trial he said he feared black people.

Dozens of white farmers have been murdered in South Africa in recent years and Nel believed his family could be killed.

The case has rekindled memories of racist killings during the apartheid era and has prompted widespread calls for the reintroduction of the death penalty.

Tags: law-crime-and-justice, crime, prisons-and-punishment, murder-and-manslaughter, south-africa