HARARE, Zimbabwe -- A High Court judge Friday convicted three Zimbabweans suspected of being spies for South Africa and sentenced them to hang for murder in connection with a bungled car-bomb attack against exiled South African rebels.

It was the first time Zimbabwe, a landlocked south central African nation formerly the British colony of Rhodesia, ordered alleged spies for neighboring South Africa to the gallows since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.

High Court Judge Wilson Sandura found the three Zimbabweans -- two whites and a black -- guilty of 'constructive intent to kill' in a car-bomb blast Jan. 11 outside a home in the southern city of Bulawayo. The unwitting driver, also a Zimbabwean, died when the bomb exploded prematurely.

The car bomb had been intended for exiled members of the African National Congress, the rebel organization led by jailed dissident Nelson Mandela which is trying to overthrow the white minority South African government.

Sentenced to death Friday were Kevin Woods, 35, Michael Smith, 34, and Phillip Conjwayo, 54. All three were former members of the colonial-era Rhodesian security forces and had been targeted in an abortive rescue attempt in July by other alleged South African agents.

Woods has admitted to interrogators he was hired as a South African intelligence agent in 1983, but Friday's conviction was for murder, not espionage.

Sandura rejected last-ditch defense appeals for leniency in sentencing on the grounds of extenuating circumstances, siding with state prosecutors who said the bungled bombing was premeditated and an attack on Zimbabwean sovereignty.

In Zimbabwe, South Africa's neighbor to the north, the death sentence carries an automatic appeal. In this case, the appeal was not expected to be be heard until early next year, when Woods and Smith face another trial on charges of masterminding or aiding bomb attacks on ANC offices and houses in the capital in 1986.

Woods, when given a final opportunity to speak, said the men intended no harm to Zimbabwe itself or its citizens and regretted the death of the unsuspecting driver, Abert Mwanza.

'We were only motivated on behalf of the people of South Africa who suffer mayhem and death nearly on a daily basis at the hands of ANC murderers,' said Woods, who served in the police and in the Central Intelligence Organization after Zimbabwe's independence.

'For us to suffer conviction because we pursue that motive while ANC perpetrators roam the streets of this country in clover is a moral injustice in its extreme,' he said. 'The countries that harbor these murderers must look to their conscience before pointing fingers at us.'

Since the ANC was outlawed in South Africa in 1960, it has waged an underground war against the white minority government from exile headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia -- which lies to the north of Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe, for its part, has allowed the group to maintain a political presence since that country became independent in 1980. The government of President Robert Mugabe has allowed the ANC to maintain representatives in the capital and set up a number of 'refugee' safehouses.

The January car-bomb attack was aimed at such a safehouse.

But Zimbabwe denies allowing itself to be used as a springboard for ANC attacks in South Africa and claims to limit its support to moral and material aid.

Smith, who served in the Rhodesian army and one year in the South African army, said in response to Friday's conviction, 'We never ever had any intention to kill him (Mwanza) or to kill or harm any Zimbabwean in any way or to carry out any attack against the government of Zimbabwe.'

Source: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/11/18/Suspected-South-Africa-spies-convicted-in-attack/8311595832400/?utm_source=chatgpt.com