Читать книгу A Just Defiance - Peter Harris - Страница 17

Liaising with the office of the attorney-general in Pretoria on the case of Jabu Masina and the Three Others is only a marginally better experience than dealing with the prison warders at Maximum Security. No legal collegiality here, just the same obstructive treatment. Cold enmity behind a veneer of legal professionalism. But when I finally get the charge sheet, I start to regret the rush. There are forty-nine charges and I realise that, if anything, the accused have been somewhat modest about their activities, and with good reason.

The charge sheet, dated 15 May 1987 and signed by the deputy attorney-general of the Transvaal, M T van der Merwe, senior counsel, states that from 1977 to 1986 all four of the accused received intensive and specialised military training in a number of countries, including Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Tanzania and the German Democratic Republic.

The main charge says it all: ‘And whereas the accused during the period 1977 to September 1986 and in the Republic and elsewhere and with hostile intent against the state to overthrow the government of the state and through force to endanger it (a) conspired with the ANC and its members . . . to promote the aims of the ANC and to commit the acts set out in the annexure hereto . . . therefore the accused are guilty of the crime of high treason.’ It is downhill from there.

There are three charges of contravening the Terrorism Act of 1967, involving the commission of what the Act describes as ‘a range of terrorist activities’. Six charges that relate to contravening the provisions of the Internal Security Act, 74 of 1982. Four charges of murder. Three charges of attempted murder. Twelve charges of malicious damage to property. And the cherry on the top, the main charge of high treason. As usual in these cases, there are a number of alternative charges. It reminds me of that song about a man loading sixteen tons of coal, one fist of iron and one of steel, ‘. . . and if the left don’t get you, then the right one will . . . dum dum dum.’

If I have been left in any doubt as to how serious these charges are, there are also charges of contravening the Arms and Ammunition Act, 75 of 1969, by unlawful possession of the following assortment of weapons: two Makarov pistols and their fully loaded magazines, five AK-47 combat rifles and twenty-three fully loaded magazines, two Russian SPM-2 limpet mines and related components, four 158 mini limpet mines with igniters and time fuses, two Russian defensive F-1 hand grenades, eleven RGD offensive hand grenades and a variety of igniters, six military-type mechanical detonators, one TM-57 landmine and its detonator, numerous rounds of ammunition and, just in case things got out of hand, one RPG anti-tank rocket launcher.

I know that if the accused are found guilty on any one of the charges of murder there is a strong likelihood of the death sentence. There are four such charges here, as well as the main count of high treason, which also carries the death penalty. There’s something else: I know that the State justice system is an efficient one and that they would never put up charges of murder in a high-profile political trial unless they had a rock-solid case. Treason is possibly arguable. But a murder trial probably based on confessions, with the type of judges allocated to political trials, makes conviction highly likely. If no extenuating circumstances can be found, it is obligatory for the judge to pass the ultimate sentence. Death by hanging.