THE police and Lon­min should be held crim­i­nally liable for the deaths of 34 peo­ple at Lonmin's Marikana mine in 2012, the Far­lam com­mis­sion heard yes­ter­day.  While the police have so far received the lion's share of blame...the Legal Resources Cen­tre said yes­ter­day that if the police were to be held crim­i­nally liable, Lon­min could not be excused...In the morn­ing ses­sion, the South African Human Rights Commission argued that the police had fore­seen the pos­si­bil­ity that lives would be lost if it was to "go tacti­cal" and move to dis­arm and dis­perse the strik­ers...said the rights commission's coun­sel, Michelle le Roux...The risk of mul­ti­ple deaths was "both fore­see­able and fore­seen", Ms le Roux said.  Legal Resources Cen­tre coun­sel Tem­beka Ngcukaitobi said by the same rea­son­ing, Lon­min was also liable... The com­pany had a legal duty to pro­tect its work­ers and had failed to do so. It had twice been told by the police that if the police were to do what the com­pany was sug­gest­ing, blood would be shed.
Mr Ngcukaitobi said Lon­min had been part of the deci­sion to pro­ceed with the oper­a­tion and was so "embed­ded" in it that the inquiry ought to rec­om­mend that charges of mur­der should be brought against it.