I shot black people 'to keep promise to God'

De Wet Kritzinger believed he had to shoot innocent black people to keep a promise with God, the Pretoria High Court heard this week. "I believed that by keeping my promise to God and obeying God I (did) not act wrongfully," he said in a statement to court read by his counsel, Harry Prinsloo. But he also believed the government was planning farm attacks and that a message had to be sent out in this regard. Kritzinger, who carried a Bible in the dock, pleaded not guilty to the murder of three black people on a bus in Constantia Park, Pretoria, in January 2000, and the attempted murder of four more.