wfn.org | Teen Pleads Guilty to Lesser Charge

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (154
notes).

Note 154 by UMNS on June 12, 1997 at 15:46 Eastern (2546 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Joretta Purdue                       342(10-31-71B){154}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           June 12, 1997

South African teen pleads guilty
to lesser charge in Mississippi court

                 by United Methodist News Service

     Azikiwe Kambule, a South African teen-ager, pleaded guilty to
carjacking and accessory to murder after the fact, in a
Mississippi circuit court June 11.
     The prosecution decision to try Kambule as an adult and to
seek the death penalty drew the attention of several groups
opposed to capital punishment, including the United Methodist
Board of Church and Society.
     The Soweto-raised teen originally had been charged with
accessory to capital murder in the Jan. 25, 1996, carjacking
murder of Pamela McGill, a state Department of Human Services
worker from Jackson, Miss.
     Kambule had come to Mississippi with his mother, Busisiwe
Chabeli, and stepfather, Michael Chabeli, when his mother received
a scholarship a few years ago. After a year-long fruitless search
for work, Kambule's stepfather returned to South Africa, where he
is a lawyer.
     Negotiations among the attorneys, the victim's family and the
defendant's family led to the plea agreement. McGill's father
James E. McGill, formerly served as part-time local pastor in the
Mississippi United Methodist Annual (regional) Conference.
     The plea agreement followed the judge's ruling, during pre-
trial motions the previous week, that Kambule could not be given
the death penalty as an accessory when the convicted trigger-man
Santonia Berry had plea bargained a life sentence without
possibility of parole.
     Kambule will be sentenced June 20. The prosecuting attorney
has said he will seek the maximum 35-year sentence without parole.
     Kambule's attorney has said that his client is very
remorseful about McGill's death. The attorney will ask the judge
to consider that, along with the boy's age, school record, his
"lack of participation" in the crime and his co-operation with
authorities after his arrest.
     After accepting the pleas, the judge asked Kambule what
happened.  Kambule told him that Berry said he wanted McGill's
car, took it at gunpoint, drove McGill and Kambule to an isolated
area, took McGill into the woods and returned alone.
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