Journalist who campaigned for the proper application of criminal law in South Africa and co-founded the Justice Project

The South African journalist Jeremy Gordin campaigned to release innocent prisoners wrongly convicted in flawed trials. In 2008 he co-founded and became the first director of the University of the Witwatersrand Justice Project. Given his concern for the proper application of criminal law, it is a cruel coincidence that his death, aged 70, came through a break-in at his home in Johannesburg.

The Justice Project was an initiative of the university’s journalism department, in which students investigated dubious convictions, torture and abuse of prisoners, and overcrowding in detention facilities. Their findings helped to highlight previously unreported cases and resulted in many releases of men sent to jail for mistaken reasons.

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