World

South African Miners Charged For Murder in Colleague's Deaths

270 charged in obscure apartheid-era law after police killed 34 in strike fight

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The 270 miners arrested during violent strikes in South Africa have been charged with the murder of their 34 colleagues who were shot dead by police.

The murder charge – and associated charges for the attempted murder of 78 miners injured at the Marikana mine near Johannesburg – was brought by the national prosecuting authority under an obscure Roman-Dutch common law previously used by the apartheid government.