Percy Yutar
Percy Yutar (29 July 1911 – 13 July 2002) was a lawyer who became
Early life
Percy Yutar was born in the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock to parents who had emigrated to South Africa from the ghettos of Lithuania, like the majority of the country's once-large Jewish community. His father's original surname was "Yuter".[1] As a young man, he worked in his father's butcher's shop.[2]
Yutar attended the
The Rivonia trial and apartheid
Yutar was the prosecutor in the 1963
During the trial, Yutar brutally cross-examined some of the defendants.[2] Yutar even carried out a hostile cross-examination of Alan Paton, who had appeared in mitigation of sentence.[3] Yutar accused the defendants of telling lies to the world that Africans in South Africa were oppressed. In truth, he said, Africans were peaceful, law-abiding and loyal to the regime.[5]
After the sentencing and conclusion of the trial, Yutar was lionised in the media as South Africa's saviour, the defender of civilisation against the forces of darkness. He encouraged this image by stoking white fears of an imminent bloodbath.[2] The minister of justice, John Vorster, lauded him as a true patriot, while he was vilified by anti-apartheid activists, such as the African National Congress, which he denounced as a communist-dominated terrorist organisation that had misled the black masses. South Africa's security forces held him in high regard.[5] Benjamin Pogrund, former deputy-editor of The Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg, confirmed that Yutar "was loved by the security police. They told me they loved him because he did their bidding. What they wanted, he did, including all his histrionics in court."[6] Yutar was said to be indifferent towards apartheid.[2]
Years later, after the end of apartheid, Yutar claimed that his decision to charge the defendants with sabotage instead of treason had saved their lives. In his last recorded interview, he stated: "If I had merely even asked for the death penalty, the judge would have granted... They would have been named martyrs and that would have led to a hellish revolution, and a bloody civil war. And I have not the slightest doubt that I acted correctly, and saved this country." George Bizos, one of the trial's defence lawyers, called the statement self-aggrandising and highlighting his own role. The crime, as judge de Wet clarified in his closing remarks, was "in essence one of high treason", and the heavy political considerations involved in the potential martyring the leading opponents of the regime were out of Yutar's hands.[3][7]
Mandela was released from prison in 1990. Negotiations to end apartheid culminated in South Africa's first free elections in 1994, in which Mandela and the African National Congress won a large majority, and Mandela became president. In 1995, President Mandela invited Yutar to a
Legacy
Yutar was a controversial figure whose "vengeful and forbidding image as a relentless opponent of the anti-apartheid struggle contrasted with his private persona as a gentle and devoted husband and father, who loved classical music."[5]
For 11 years, Yutar served as chairman of the United Hebrew Congregation, a collection of Orthodox synagogues in Johannesburg.[6]
In popular culture
In the 2017 film An Act of Defiance, which follows the story of defence lawyer Bram Fischer in the Rivonia trial, Yutar was portrayed by actor José Domingos. Fischer and others in Mandela's defence team initially believe that Yutar's Jewish background would help their clients. However, in one scene, Yutar complains that Mandela's Jewish co-defendants (whom he calls "Jewish terrorists") have placed the Jewish community at risk of violence from white South Africans.
See also
References
- ^ "JewishGen Lithuania Database". Jewishgen.org. 29 July 2009. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
- ^ a b c d e "Percy Yutar, Obituary". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. 23 July 2002. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
- ^ a b c Rathbone, Emma (Fall 2013). "Mandela's Prosecutor". Virginia Quarterly Review. 89 (4): 158–168. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
- ^ "South Africa's Supreme Court Abolishes Death Penalty". The New York Times. New York. 7 June 1995. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
- ^ a b c d Shaw, Gerald (19 July 2002). "Percy Yutar, Obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ^ a b Easterman, Daniel (25 December 2013). "Mandela and me: journalist's insights into the anti-apartheid struggle". The Jewish Chronicle. London. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
- ^ https://www.nelsonmandela.org/uploads/files/12_June_sentence.pdf [bare URL PDF]
Further reading
- Joffe, Joel (2007). The State vs Nelson Mandela - The Trial that Changed South Africa. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-85168-638-4.