Four white Afrikaner students are to be fined for making a film humiliating domestic workers at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. The hearing opened on Wednesday but postponed until Friday for final sentencing.

The four pleaded guilty to crimen injuria in a case which has underlined how close to the surface racial acrimony remains in South Africa, 16 years after the end of apartheid.

State and defence attorneys have agreed a fine is the most appropriate punishment.

Charges relate to a film made in 2007 by students protesting against the integration of their all-white hostel.

They filmed five domestic workers - four of them women - drinking beer, dancing, running and playing rugby. And they fed them stew in which the accused appear to have urinated.

The students' lawyer Kemp J Kemp, who successfully defended current President Jacob Zuma in his rape trial four years ago, insists that his clients did not urinate in the food and that the workers had voluntarily participated in the production.

The four intended to use the film to make a political point, Kemp argued. But they now accept that it demeaned the workers, which is why they pleaded guilty and asked the workers for forgiveness.

University Principal Jonathan Jansen drew flak at the time when he dropped disciplinary action against the four, expounding the virtue of reconciliation over retribution.

Jansen invited the students to return to the university but none of them took up the offer.

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