South Africa miners partially freed of murder charges

South African prosecutors have provisionally dropped murder charges against 270 miners whose colleagues were shot dead by police.

The charges cannot be dismissed formally until the end of the inquiry, but prosecutors said all detained miners would be freed. Local authorities used a controversial apartheid-era law to accuse the miners of provoking police to open fire.

Miners were demanding a huge pay rise and recognition of a new union.
The killings, at the Marikana mine owned by Lonmin, shocked the nation.
State prosecutors charged 270 miners with murder under the "common purpose" doctrine.

The rule was used by the white-minority apartheid regime to crack down on its black opponents, and at the time was opposed by the now governing African National Congress.