The three young men charged in Cape Town under the Terrorism Act with distributing a leaflet urging people to strike on 15 and 16 September reappeared in February.
On 18 March John Christopher HOFFMAN (23), Jaiwoodien PARKER (23), and Ismail JACKSON were acquitted on the grounds that the only substantial witness was an alleged accomplice who, held under the Terrorism Act, had been told he would not be released until he had made a statement. This, said Mr. Justice Theron, had "the effect of tarnishing his witness' image for the court and making it impossible for the court to proceed with confidence upon the basis of his evidence."
The witness, Frederick Haupt, who had allegedly helped to hand out the leaflets, said in cross examination that the sworn statement he had made was in Afrikaans, which he did not fully understand; he had signed it because told to by the police.
Several other witnesses gave evidence, including the person who cut the stencils for the strike leaflet, one who helped the three accused obtain the paper and duplicator and Hoffman's father who saw the duplicating being done at his home. Also called was a policeman who had discovered pamphlets over a wide area from Lansdowne to Kenwyn, and three people representing factories hit by strikes. However, the judge ruled that satisfactory evidence of distribution (rather than production or effect) was a pre-requisite for conviction, and on this point Haupt's evidence was insufficient.
In unsworn statements from the dock Jackson (who was marginally implicated by the evidence) denied ever seeing or handling the strike leaflet until shown it by the police; Parker admitted seeing the leaflet but denied distributing it; and Hoffman (who was most seriously implicated) claimed that the words "Go to work at your own risk" had been added to the stencil without his knowledge, and that two of the state witnesses had instigated the whole affair.
