Justice took some strange turns during the Boer War. Two brothers, Rudolf and Andries Pienaar, who were fighting with the Boer Army against the British at Winburg in the Orange Free State, returned to their farmhouse during a lull in the battle and met a British officer as he was searching the building. They shot him dead.
With another brother, Christiaan, 17, and their father, William, they buried the officer.
After a servant reported the incident to the British Army, the Pienaars were arrested. Rudolf, Andries and William were sentenced to life for conspiracy to murder, but Christiaan, who was said to have ordered the killing, was judged guilty of the actual murder and hanged at Bloemfontein Prison on Thursday, November 1st, 1900.
During the war, which ended in May 1902, the Boer rebels killed 8,000 British soldiers and another 14,000 died of disease. Besides those Boers shot in military executions, some 8,000 others were killed in action, and 28,000 Boer civilians and 20,000 black South Africans were also killed.