Eric William PELSER (21) of Hillbrow appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrates' Court on 30 December charged with high treason. PELSER, who was detained in July, was not asked to plead. His legs were chained throughout the proceedings during which he was refused bail. The trial was set for 20 February in the Rand Supreme Court.
A man detained in a raid by armed police on a house in Guguletu in June later appeared in court charged under the Internal Security Act with harbouring alleged guerillas. The charge is connected to hand-grenade attacks on the homes of members of the segregated parliament, community councillors and the Langa police station.
Ntozelizwe TALAKUMENI (27) appeared in the Cape Town Magistrates' Court in October and December and was remanded in custody to appear on 7 March. The postponement was at the request of the defence to allow them time to prepare the case. Talakumeni's first lawyer, Abdullah Omar was unable to continue as he had been detained. His mother told how police detained the whole family - including five sons, cousins, her husband and two year old daughter - after surrounding the house: 'they were . . . even on top of the roof, with their guns pointing at us'. Four of the sons were subsequently detained: Clifford NTENETYA and Titus SELEPE were released in July but Nicholas and Thomas remained in custody.
Frank THEBANE (TABANE), Thabo Prince CHILOANE and Patrick Elphus MOGALE appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court in November in connection with clashes between armed police and guerillas in the Eastern Transvaal on 19 and 20 March. Thebane was charged with undergoing military training in Angola, Mozambique and the German Democratic Republic as well as 10 alternative charges of 'terrorism'. Chiloane and Mogale were charged with harbouring guerillas. A number of people were detained in March and April following the incident, many of whom were subsequently held as potential witnesses.
A disclosure that magistrates and prosecutors had attended an SADF briefing at police headquarters in Durban on 15 November provided an indication of the closeness of the links between the judiciary and the state.
With the approval of the city's Chief Magistrate, between 50 and 60 court officials watched an SADF video film of a King William's Town funeral at which a police informer was killed. The film was accompanied by an hour-long talk which, according to one of those present, 'took a strong anti-ANC/UDF slant'. It appears that the same film was snown to SADF personnel involved in the attempted suppression of protests in the townships.
The Department of Justice denied that the briefing was the first of a series to be held throughout the country, but an SAP officer commented: 'It happens quite often that law enforcement bodies come together to inform each other about what is going on'.
Following publicity concerning the briefing, one magistrate in Aliwal North in Cape Province discharged himself from hearing a bail application by eight people charged with public violence on the grounds that his independence had been prejudiced. This was apparently in response to a call for such action by a law teacher at Potchefstroom University.
On 14 January the Judge President of Natal advised magistrates who had attended the briefing not to preside over political trials of any kind 'in view of the unfavourable press publicity and comments which it has attracted'.
These developments followed the resignation at the end of August of South Africa's only Coloured magistrates, who worked in the Athlone courts in Cape Town. In a statement in October the two magistrates explained that they did not want to preside over 'political trials' which they defined as 'trials that are unrest-related'.
In November alone 17 such trials were completed, involving 1,409 people. Of these 35 were convicted, while 430 were acquitted and charges against 944 people were withdrawn, often because of a lack of evidence arising from the indiscriminate nature of police actions when they were confronted by large crowds of demonstrators.
In Cape Town it was announced on 14 November that owing to 'the increasing number of cases' two more extra magistrates' courts were to be opened in Wynberg and that these 'might become a permanent feature'. These courts were in addition to a new court opened in Wynberg on 4 November.
A 'huge increase' in the number of people convicted for murder, arson, malicious damage to property, public violence and sedition lies behind the proposal in the new Criminal Procedures Amendment Bill to extend corporal punishment in the form of whipping to those found guilty of such offences.
In addition to the ten trials referred to earlier (see page 1) eight others involving charges of murder arising from political and industrial unrest were reported in the press in recent months. Ninety-one people stood accused, including at least 18 minors. Most appearances were before courts in the Eastern Cape and the progress of those hearings had not been reported in the press by the end of the year.
The four Eastern Cape trials were of Rex QUMA (22) of Port Alfred, accused of killing two men in June; seven youths charged with the murder of a policeman on 3 September in Grahamstown; 25 Motherwell residents said to have killed a policeman; and 25 residents of Duncan Village.
In the Transvaal, Matlakala MOTAUNG (27) and ten other residents of Duduza were accused of killing an informer at a funeral in July, while Solomon and Paulus MOTSOAGOA and three others were due to appear before Nigel magistrates on a murder charge on 20 November.
In Natal ten BTR-Sarmcol workers were charged with the killing of three strikebreakers at Howick in April, and Vuyani YENGO (21) and six others were due in Zwelitsha Magistrates' Court on 11 November to answer charges of killing a policeman in September.
No further information is available concerning the progress of the trial of Vuyisile Mabuti MDA (21), five other men and a minor for the murder of a policeman last September, but more evidence of the nationwide character of popular actions against state personnel is provided in a new case also before the Zwelitsha Magistrates' Court.
The killing of a member of a bantustan military unit last August at the funeral of the murdered lawyer Victoria Mxenge in Rayi village was the subject of hearings in Zwelitsha and the Bisho Supreme Court in November, December and January.
Five men are charged with his murder and public violence: Monde MXENGE (28), Vuyisile MATI (24), Bonisile MXOLISA (32), Reed DYANTYI (23) and Fundile MAYOYO (27). Monde Mxenge is a brother-in-law of Mrs. Mxenge, and Vuyisile Mati the son of a former Robben Island prisoner, Joe MATI.
In response to an allegation by Mxenge's uncle that the police had acted improperly in detaining him on 16 August under Section 26 of the National Security Act, as well as assaulting him and unlawfully interrogating him, the police justified their actions in the Supreme Court on 15 November by claiming that because the killing of the 'solider' was a political act it fell within the ambit of the NSA.
However on 24 January, the charges against the five were withdrawn and they were served with subpoenas requiring them to give evidence at an inquest into the death of the "soldier", which is to be held on 6 March.
Charges against 46 people arrested for holding an illegal gathering last September in a local church were withdrawn in the Mdantsane Magistrates' Court on 11 December. This followed an application by the defence lawyer on the grounds that the state witnesses were not available. No pleas had been sought or evidence led at any of the four hearings held since September.
During November and December a large number of people continued to appear in courts charged with offences relating to incidents of popular resistance. The majority of trials taking place since November occurred in the Western Cape and the Transvaal with fewer in the Eastern Cape and Natal.
Of those trials which have been completed the majority ended with the accused being acquitted or having their charges withdrawn, indicating that their detentions and prosecutions were based on weak state evidence. Several allegations have been made that people have been arrested long after they had allegedly committed the offences.
Four hundred and twenty one pupils were found not guilty of attending an illegal gathering when they appeared in the Zwelitsha Magistrates' Court on 28 November 1985. The pupils were acquitted after their defence had pointed out that the Ciskei National Security Act under which they were charged was not intended to deal with meetings held to discuss school boycotts but to provide for the security of the state and the maintenance of law and order.
Defence evidence showed that the pupils had gathered to discuss returning to school. Police at the meeting had not given the pupils a warning to disperse and had made dispersal impossible by surrounding the church where the meeting was being held.
The State declined to continue prosecution of the UDF leader, Dr Allen BOESAK and 18 others, following their arrest on 10 August 1985 when they defied an order and entered the African township of Guguletu in Cape Town to attend the funeral of a youth shot by police during unrest.
Charges of attending an illegal gathering were withdrawn against 48 people alleged to have attempted to march to Pollsmoor Prison on 28 August 1985. Among the accused were Professor Charles VILLA-VICENCIO, professor of theology at the University of Cape Town and the Rev Abel HENDRICKS, former head of the Methodist Church.
Many trials in recent months have involved minors. Children as young as nine years were brought before the courts, to face serious charges, in some cases.
Two hundred and twenty six people were due to appear in court in Oudtshoorn on 18 December on charges of public violence and murder. Among those due to appear were said to be two boys aged nine and ten, several under the age of 15 and a woman with a 10 month old baby.
Four hearings in the Johannesburg Magistrates' Court on 7 January, arising out of unrest on the East Rand between August and October 1985, involved juveniles. Three 17 year olds from KwaThema and Kagiso appeared to face charges of public violence, alternatively arson: Zandizile MUSI and four youths aged between 15 and 17 appeared on a charge of attempted arson for allegedly intending to set the Kagiso Secondary School alight; three 15 year old boys and a 14 year old girl were charged with illegally possessing petrol bombs in Kagiso in October last year; and a 13 year old was charged with 12 others with public violence in Soweto in October. Because the defendants include juveniles, all these trials are being held in camera.
