Pat Tebbutt, sports-mad judge with the courage of his convictions
Led inquiry into AWB killing spree in Bophuthatswana that heralded death throes of white right-wing militancy
Pat Tebbutt, who has died in Cape Town at the age of 93, was a journalist, businessman, sports commentator — and a high court judge who faced down AWB leader Eugene Terre’Blanche when he marched into his office with six armed bodyguards.
This was after President Nelson Mandela had appointed Tebbutt in 1996 to conduct a commission of inquiry into the March 1994 invasion of Bophuthatswana by Terre’Blanche’s militant right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging.
During the invasion, three AWB members were shot dead by a Bop policeman as they lay wounded next to their Mercedes-Benz. Before this, the AWB men and their colleagues had gone on a shooting spree, killing 42 civilians in and around the capital Mmabatho and wounding 140.
Tebbutt said the most “chilling” testimony he heard in the 18 months of the inquiry was that hours before the AWB’s murderous rampage, a dominee had said prayers for them in which he asked God to protect them because they “expected to fatally shoot k **** s” that day.
Terre’Blanche refused to testify. Tebbutt decided not to subpoena him because he believed he would refuse the subpoena and then make political capital when a warrant for his arrest was issued. Instead he wrote him a personal note, inviting him to testify.
Murderess shrugged
To his surprise, Terre’Blanche arrived at his office, reeking of alcohol and accompanied by two “generals” and six heavily armed bodyguards in camouflage.
The right-wing leader proceeded to make a statement in his best demagogic style as if addressing a hall packed with political supporters, wrote Tebbutt. After telling the judge he hoped justice would prevail, he stomped out.
During the hearing, Advocate Mogoeng Mogoeng, now chief justice, appeared on behalf of the ANC.
In a 417-page finding, Tebbutt said that Terre’Blanche was criminally responsible for the deaths of the unarmed civilians and should be prosecuted.
His report was handed to Mandela in March 1998 — and ignored. The exercise had been a “waste of time”, said Tebbutt.
In the concluding paragraph of his report he wrote that the lesson of the invasion for South Africa’s militant right-wing groups was that the killing of blacks would result in retaliation with often fatal results. He wrote that this realisation had led to the cessation of the militant activities of right-wing elements in South Africa.
Tebbutt was born in Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia on January 26 1924.
He matriculated in Mafikeng and enrolled at the age of 16 for a BA LLB at the University of Cape Town, which he got in 1944 when he was 20. He then joined the navy and spent the closing years of World War 2 on a minesweeper.
After the war he couldn’t afford to join the bar, so became a journalist on the Cape Argus. He covered the trial of Maria Lee who poisoned her boyfriend with arsenic and was sentenced to death.
When her appeal was dismissed he went with her attorney to break the news to her on death row. She just gave a resigned shrug and granted him an interview.
He also covered parliament and was there when DF Malan took his seat as prime minister after the National Party won the 1948 election.
After five years as a reporter he began practising as a junior counsel. He was a talented public speaker and lectured on public speaking at the Cape Technical College. One of his students was Raymond Ackerman, who went on to start Pick n Pay.
Tebbutt became a senior counsel in 1962 at the age of 38 and an acting judge of the High Court in Cape Town at 41. In 1971 he joined the Cape Townbased investment house Syfrets Trust. The following year he was made MD. In 1978 he returned to the law after a falling out with the chairman.
After three years as a judge of the Lesotho Court of Appeal he became a judge of the High Court in Cape Town in 1981.
Butcher’s shop bomb
He sentenced a member of the South West Africa People’s Organisation to death for planting a bomb in a butcher’s shop in Walvis Bay that killed five people and seriously injured 21. The sentence was overturned by the appeal court in Bloemfontein because the bomber had been assaulted by the police before confessing.
In 2001 Tebbutt joined the Botswana Appeal Court and turned down the appeal of a South African woman, Mariette Bosch, who had been sentenced to death for murdering her next-door neighbour whose husband she wanted.
He became judge president of the appeal court and wrote a controversial judgment supporting the government’s right to deport an Australian academic for writing a derogatory article about the president.
In 1996 he became a judge of the Swaziland court of appeal. He and his five fellow judges resigned after King Mswati refused to observe two judgments against him that he felt were insulting.
For more than a year Swaziland had no court of appeal. International pressure and threats to withdraw foreign aid led to a meeting with the king. He promised to respect the independence of the judiciary and abide by its judgments, and they agreed to return.
Tebbutt retired from the Swaziland appeal court in 2008 and had a triple-bypass heart operation a year later.
He loved sport and was a popular commentator. In 1976 he did the English commentary for the first rugby test to be televised in South Africa, between the Springboks and All Blacks.
He is survived by his third wife, Gilly, a former Springbok golfer, and two sons.