INDICTMENT QUASHED IN SOUTH AFRICAN TRIAL OF ELEVEN
Last July 11 in Rivonia, a fashionable suburb of Johannesburg, police raided the home of Arthur Goldreich, a painter. They arrested 17 persons whom they found there holding some kind of meeting. Later the artist managed to escape. His wife and servants were released. But nine of those seized were held incommunicado in solitary confinement for "questioning" under South Africa's notorious "antisabotage" law [passed May 2].
On October 9 they were told that they faced trial twenty days later on charges of "responsibility" for 222 acts of "sabotage" during the previous 18 months. Under the “antisabotage" law the death penalty can be inflicted,
Seven of the defendants were described as members of a "national high -command" and of "an executive committee of the National Liberation Move~ ment" of the "Umkhonto We Sizwe" [the spear of the nation], a shock troop organization connected, according to the Minister of Justice, to the Com~ munist party and the African National Congress [ANc], both of which are proscribed in South Africa.
Included in the indictment were Nelson Mandela, who was already in prison serving a five-year sentence for “inciting violence," and James A, Kantor, a member of a firm of criminal lawyers to which Harold Wolpe, a brother-in-law of Goldreich, belongs. Wolpe fled after the Rivonia raid. Kantor was arrested after the lawyerst offices were searched. He claims . he knows absolutely nothing about what Wolpe might have been doing.
Among the six African, one Indian and four white defendants were some very prominent names in the former legal political opposition to'’the South African government:
Nelson Mandela, 45, influential Negro attorney, formerly associated with Oliver Tambo, one of the heads of the ANC, now in exile.
Walter .Sisulu, 50, former general secretary of the ANC, a miner by trade. Freed on bail, he went into the underground three months before being arrested at Rivonia.
Dennis Goldberg, 34, former leader of the Congress of Democrats party.
Lionel Bernstein, 45, an architect who was considered to be a leading theoretician of the Communist party of South Africa before it was banned,
Govan Mbeki, a former Communist leader and area organizer of the ANC,
Ahmed Mohammed Kathadra, 33, general secretary of the Indian Congress of the Transvaal.
Raymond Mahlaba, a lieutenant of Mbeki.
Elias Matsoaledi, Adrew Mlangani, James Kantor, and Bob A, Hepple, a Johannesburg lawyer. 7 , ne
On October 11 the United Nations by a vote of 106 to 1 [the opposing -vote was cast by South Africa] passed a resolution condemning the trial and requesting the “immediate unconditional release" of all the prisoners
as well as other "persons imprisoned, interned or subjected to other restrictions for having opposed the policy ‘of apartheid." [See World --Outlook October 18, ] 7
. The answer of the, Pretoria government to this was that the UN's request- was “unheard of interference" in the internal affairs of South
The trial opened according to schedule on October 29, Judge Quartus de Wet brought it to a swift conclusion on the second day. He upheld the contention of the defense that the indictment was "fatally defective" and dismissed the charges,
This, however, did not mean freedom for the defendants. Police immediately pounced on them in the courtroom, arresting them again on. unspecified charges, and hustled them into cells before anyone could con= fer with them,. Under the "antisabotage" act, they can now be held in | solitary confinement for a fresh period of ninety days. When this time is _ up, the process can be repeated indefinitely. : Dennis Goldberg stood on a chair to shout to his family. Police pulled him down, Ahmed M. Kathrada raised a clenched fist, the African nationalist salute, before the police dragged him out. , “When Judge de Wet reprimanded public prosecutor Percy Yutar.. for lack of specific allegations in the statets case, the prosecutor tried to introdyce the state's opening address as a substitute for additional data.
"This is an entirely irregular way of conducting the case, " the judge said, "I wontt accept it.
- Yutar then argued that there was no need to detail the exact. nature of the alleged crimes because, in the state's view, the accused knew what they had done,.
"That presupposes that they are guilty," the judge said.
When Yutar complained that the judge's attitude would compel the state to take more time to comply with such requirements, the judge said: "Tt is not the function of the Court to draw up an indictment for the state,
Before the judge quashed the indictment, the state removed one of the prisoners from the dock and put him in "protective custody," This was .Bob A, Hepple, who, the public prosecutor said, had agreed to turn state's witness,
It was not kmown whether he had served as a stool pigeon at the Rivonia gathering or whether he had been tortured during the detention period until he reached the court in a brainewashed condition. _.
The London office of the African National Congress made public on’ October 25 the text of a letter smuggled out of the Pretoria prison, describing conditions under which a prominent prisoner like Nelson