Mungo Soggot
The Legal Aid Board has revoked its controversial funding of Allan Boesak’s defence after it emerged that he has other financial backing, drummed up by South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, Franklin Sonn.
The decision to withdraw Boesak’s funding was taken at a board meeting on Monday on the grounds that the Legal Aid Board would not pay for his defence “jointly”. It said the decision had nothing to do with media reports about Sonn’s role in obtaining funding.
Boesak is due to appear in the Cape High Court next month on fraud and theft charges involving more than R1-million in donor money administered by the Foundation for Peace and Justice, where he was a director.
When the cash-strapped board agreed earlier this year to fund Boesak’s defence, it was stung by allegations that it had bent the rules.
Boesak, the former chair of the African National Congress in the Western Cape, was allowed to select his own attorneys – Pretoria-based Stegmans – although the board normally chooses the lawyers. It is also unusual for the board to pay for lawyers from out of town: in Boesak’s case it would have had to foot the bill for flights between Cape Town and Pretoria.
The Minister of Justice, Dullah Omar, who was criticised for the glowing support he gave when Boesak returned from the US in March, dismissed suggestions at the time that he had interfered with the board’s decision to help Boesak. Omar, who succeeded Boesak as Western Cape ANC chair, also said he had no reason to believe that the board had broken the rules.
In March the Mail & Guardian reported that Boesak’s living costs were being paid by a group of Cape businessmen including Sonn’s son, Crispin. Last weekend, newspapers reported that Franklin Sonn had organised extra financial support for Boesak’s defence, allowing him to secure the services of a senior counsel, Mike Maritz. The board had refused to pay for a senior counsel.
A senior official of the board, Peter Brits, said this week Boesak had not concealed that he had secured private funding and there had been much correspondence about the matter. Chris Petty, a senior partner at Stegmans, told the Mail & Guardian he had not been notified by the board of its decision to halt Boesak’s funding.