OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 7.00pm.
PAULA McBride, the wife of jailed foreign affairs official Robert McBride, on Friday placed an advertisement in the press appealing for financial assistance for her husband’s legal costs.
McBride on Friday said her husband’s legal costs have already run over $50000. The South African government has refused to pay the legal fees because McBride was on leave at the time of his arrest in Mozambique on suspicion of gunrunning.
The ad is carried in this week’s Mail & Guardian.
Meanwhile, the M & G reports that documents presented to Mozambique’s Supreme Court by McBride’s defence counsel allege that senior Mozambican police and military officers are involved in smuggling guns into South Africa.
One of the two state witnesses, Alexandra Uamba (alias Mamba), is a gun-trafficking middleman, charges the defence team, which says this fact was revealed by McBride’s arrest.
The defence has produced several sworn affidavits supporting McBride’s bid for freedom, including statements from officials of the South African Secret Service and the National Intelligence Agency praising McBride’s “valuable information on counter-espionage in the best interests of South Africa and its new Constitution” and his participation in an investigation into violence in South Africa.
This week’s Mail & GuardianMozambique’s police help smuggling, says McBride’s defence