A TERRORIST RIGHT-WING LEADER HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO TWO LIFE TERMS AND 21 YEARS
29 September 2022
The High Court of South Africa: Mpumalanga High Court sitting in Middelburg, has sentenced a leader of the National Christian Resistance Movement, a right-wing organization, Harry Johannes Knoesen (63), to two life terms and twenty-one years imprisonment for terrorism-related offences. Knoesen was convicted of a contravention of preparing and planning to carry out terrorist attacks, incitement to carry out a terrorist attack in South Africa, soliciting support/recruitment of persons to carry out terrorist attacks in South Africa, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition.
The accused was further declared unfit to possess a firearm, as part of the sentence. The application for leave to appeal against his sentence and conviction was also dismissed. Knoesen was charged together with the Abrams brothers, Errol and Eric, who pleaded guilty to the crimes and were sentenced.
During the period December 2018 to 28 November 2019, Knoesen developed a deep-rooted hatred, for the non-profit racial democratic dispensation, established under the auspices of the Constitution and implemented by the South African government and for South African persons residing in the Republic, be they South African Citizens or members of èmigrè communities.
He sought to justify his beliefs on religious grounds, claiming that God had ordained that he should re-claim South Africa for white people. These highly racial views were his motivation to decide to overthrow the Government, and indiscriminately kill African people. To further this end, he planned to attack government institutions and more specifically police and military institutions. He also identified townships and informal settlements occupied by African persons as targets for attack.