/ 12 August 1997

Trevor Tutu denied bail

TUESDAY, 4.30PM

TREVOR TUTU, son of truth commission chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was denied bail by an East London Regional Court magistrate on Tuesday pending the outcome of an appeal against his three-and-a-half-year jail sentence for making a bomb threat.

Tutu was arrested on Monday after living as a free man for the past three years since he lost his appeal against conviction and sentence for making a bomb threat at East London airport in 1991. He was never arrested to serve his sentence after losing the appeal in 1993.

Tutu told the court on Monday he thought his conviction in 1991 had been forgotten. He denied he ever tried to evade arrest or abscond.

“I really thought this matter has been forgotten since the [1994] elections. No-one has bothered me about it and I was most definitely not going to bother anyone about it,” he said.

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