S.Africa court gives white extremist plotters 5 to 35 years in jail for treason, other charges

JOHANNESBURG – A South African judge has given up to 20 members of a white extremist group sentences ranging from five to 35 years in the country's first post-apartheid treason trial.

The state media reported that Judge Eben Jordaan handed the sentences out Tuesday to end the decade-long trial. Some sentences were suspended due to time served.

Members of the Afrikaner extremist group Boeremag, or white farmer force, last year were found guilty of treason for a plot to violently overthrow the government.

Some members were also convicted of culpable homicide and conspiring to murder for a thwarted plan to kill former President Nelson Mandela. The group also claimed responsibility for a series of bombs that killed a woman and caused damage throughout the South African township of Soweto in 2002.