Years later, after the end of apartheid, Yutar claimed that his decision to charge the defendants with sabotage instead of treason had saved their lives. In his last recorded interview, he stated: "If I had merely even asked for the death penalty, the judge would have granted...They would have been named martyrs and that would have led to a hellish revolution, and a bloody civil war. And I have not the slightest doubt that I acted correctly, and saved this country." George Bizos, one of the trial's defence lawyers, called this a lie.