Legal precedent for Lonmin murder charges - NPA

The miners are being charged under the common purpose law with the deaths of 34 colleagues who were shot dead by police during violence at Lonmin's Marikana mine.

Lesenyego said that there is legal precedent to these charges, even though it is not in the constitution. "The State has placed murder charges against all of them. Finer details around the charges will emerge in court when their bail application starts next week," he said, adding that every one of the miners was being charged with murder, attempted murder and public violence.

According to News24, Magistrate Esau Bodigelo ruled earlier that the group be kept in custody as not enough information had been provided to start their bail applications. "My ruling is that it will be in the interest of justice that the State be granted another postponement not exceeding seven days. This matter will [therefore] be postponed until next week," Bodigelo said.

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