4th S. African Convicted in Biehl Killing

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A fourth man was convicted Tuesday of the racially motivated murder of Amy Biehl, a white student from Newport Beach who was stabbed, stoned and beaten to death in a black township two years ago.

Ntombeko Peni, 19, was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the same term given to three other members of the radical, black segregationist Pan Africanist Congress who were convicted last year.

Peni was an “enthusiastic and wholehearted” participant in the attack on Biehl, a 26-year-old Fulbright scholar, as she drove black friends home to Guguletu Township outside Cape Town on Aug. 25, 1993, Judge Braam Lategan said.

Peni admitted being on the scene but denied taking part in the attack on Biehl, who was killed by a mob chanting, “One settler, one bullet,” a militant chant against whites.

But Lategan rejected his denial, saying Peni changed his story three times and was less credible than two witnesses who testified that they saw him take part in the killing.