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BY SELLING SUNDAY SUN,DAILY SUNANDCITY PRESS.

By NTJEBE GORDINON Friday morning, FaroukMeyer (36) got the good news!

His life sentence for murder wasreduced to 24 years in jail by theSupreme Court of Appeal (SCA).

And people sentenced for murderor culpable homicide before 2004have to serve one-third of theirterms only – which means only eightyears for Meyer.

But Meyer has already beenbehind bars for 15 years. So he willwalk out of notorious Sun Cityprison long before Christmas!

In 2000, aged 23, Meyer wassentenced to life for murdering threemen inside Club 12 Play at Hillfox,on the West Rand, during a viciousfight.

The SCA’s Justices Azhar Cach-alia, Jeremiah Shongwe and StephenMajiedt, who heard the case, saidthey did not want to relook the“new” evidence brought by Meyer.

Meyer claimed that he had fired inself-defence at one person only andthat he’d been framed by the police.

The judges wanted rather to lookagain at Meyer’s life sentence.

Justice Cachalia said it seemedthat Meyer had been sentenced asthough the killings had beenpre-meditated, which clearly theyhad not been.

Justice Cachalia also said that hedid not wish to prolong the matter

any longer and believed the SCAshould do the re-sentencing ratherthan sending the case back to thelower court.

It’s been a long, hard walk tofreedom for Meyer. It took 15 yearsto come before the SCA on 18 No-vember – where he was representedby Jaap Cilliers SC, who defendedMeyer on a no-fee basis.

How did a young mover andshaker from Joburg’s Eldorado Park,a convicted murderer, who in 2010added “escapee” to his criminalresume, make his way from a prisoncell to the second highest court inthe land?

Meyer had not finished school and

had no support structures and notraining in the law. He asked arelative in Pretoria who had somelegal training to help with findingsomeone to assist in finding justice.But time dragged by.

Then, in May 2010, Meyer escapedfrom Vereeniging’s Groenpunt Pris-on. But he didn’t try to hide. He hada different idea.

He contacted the Justice Depart-ment and said he would hand him-self over publicly at Sandton policestation on condition his case was re-investigated. He said he had proofthat the forensic report dealt with bythe court had been inaccurate.

Meyer’s case was not re-investigat-

ed and he went back to jail, tryingevery day to get back into court. Heapplied to the Constitutional Court,but was denied access.

He was assisted from the end of2010 by the Wits Justice Project,which investigates allegedmiscarriages of justice.

Since part of Meyer’s case wasthat some of the investigating offic-ers had misled the court during histrial, he also tried to get the help ofIndependent Police Investigative Di-rectorate. This, too, came to nothing,as did a 2012 petition to the PublicProtector.

Still, Meyer pushed on – gatheringaffidavits and evidence via peoplelike David Klatzow – and finally,having compiled his documents him-self, he made it to the SCA.

“Although Mr Meyer has no legaltraining, he has done a remarkablejob in putting together these heads ofarguments,” said Justice Cachalia.

From left: Ben Stoop (Meyer’s attorney), Jaap Cilliers SC and Zacharias “Zais”Van Zyl, SC, for the state.

Farouk Meyer, who spent 15 years injail for murder. Photo by Ezekiel Morake

JUSTICEATLAST!FaroukMeyer’s longwalkends thisChristmas