A top South African National Defence Force officer has been fired and two others demoted for cheating during a military examination. Ten others also face fraud charges related to cheating. They stand to lose millions of rands in future pension benefits and could be saddled with criminal records for life.

Brigadier-General Lennox Matyila, who holds the fourth-highest rank in the armed forces, was dishonourably discharged following the first disciplinary hearing conducted under a new military law. He was found guilty on two charges of fraud.

Matyila, who has served in the army for 22 years, stands to lose more than R6 million in future earnings. He was one of three officers who appeared before a military court on June 8 charged with fraud after violating test regulations which required them to answer some questions on their own instead of completing them as a joint effort with colleagues.

This followed a senior staff and command course test, held at Thaba Tshwane in Pretoria in 1999, when moderators noticed word-for-word similarities in some of their answers.

Matyila is a former Ciskei Army Commander who joined the ranks of the SANDF top brass during the transformation of the military.

On Friday, Matyila's lawyer, Trevor Wood, said the dismissal and sentence would be reviewed and if upheld, his client's service will be terminated with effect from June 8 2002. Matyila remains in his post until the review.

Wood would not comment on the specifics of the case, but confirmed that his client had 15 years of service remaining and stood to lose more than R6 million if his dismissal was upheld.

Matyila and his fellow officers were charged after the military prosecuting authority found that questions requiring individual analysis appeared to have been done as a team effort, despite a clear warning having been issued. The test was not written in exam format as officers were allowed to write that part of the test in the rooms they were staying in for the duration of their course. The test accounted for 10% of the group's overall mark.

Within hours of his conviction, Matyila, dressed in full uniform, was arrested and taken into custody before being released on warning pending the outcome of his appeal.

On Friday, Matyila told the Sunday Times he considered the sentence to be "unfair" as he had no previous record of misconduct. "Now I am just being humiliated and forced out as if I have killed someone or committed a crime," he said, adding that "the whole exam scam is just a plot to get rid of senior black officers".

Fellow accused Colonel Sithabiso Mahlobo and Colonel Stanley Kumalo were also found guilty on one count of fraud each. Mahlobo was the first black officer to command a peacekeeping force for the SANDF in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He received a United Nations commendation for this mission last year.

They were demoted by two ranks to that of major, and as a result took a substantial drop in salary.

The group is the first in the history of the defence force to be charged in terms of new military discipline laws. The Military Discipline Supplementary Measures Act was introduced in 1999 to provide for a new system of military courts to improve the enforcement of discipline in the military. At the hearing, Colonel William Endley testified that another group was caught cheating in a 1998 exam, but that no action was taken against them.

In a separate case, Brigadier-General Alice Temba, the first woman officer in the South African Air Force, was demoted by two ranks after also being convicted of cheating.

Temba was stripped of her senior rank on March 7 last year after being found guilty of having notes during an exam for another senior command staff course test.

The Sunday Times is in possession of a charge sheet which says she "had to make use of inadmissible notes to answer" eight or nine test questions.

Now, she has launched a High Court action against the SANDF for a review of her conviction and the non-payment of her salary.

And, in a letter to President Thabo Mbeki, Deputy Minister of Defence Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge and SANDF Chief Siphiwe Nyanda, Temba claims that the allegations of cheating were largely made against officers from liberation armies: "Recently, a bounty-hunting frenzy of senior-ranking integratees has taken form as allegations of cheating in exams make their way to the military court."

With acknowledgements to Mzilikazi Wa Afrika and Sunday Times.