Marianne Merten
A former leader of People against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad), Nadthmie Edries, has been arrested for the second time in almost five years on charges related to the August 1996 lynching of Hard Livings gang boss Rashaad Staggie.
Sedition charges against Edries, who was ousted as Pagad security chief in an internal leadership coup in late 1996, were provisionally withdrawn in September 1996 shortly after his release on R10 000 bail. At the time he threatened to sue the state for defamation and malicious prosecution.
On May 14 Edries, who is out on bail since his arrest last week, will stand trial for murder alongside current Pagad leader Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim and security chief Salie Abader, Moegsien Mohamed and former spiritual advisor Abdurazak Ebrahim.
Edries was part of the trio which initially led Pagad. He, Farouk Jaffer and Ali “Phantom” Parker were expelled towards the end of 1996 after losing an internal leadership battle. Aslam Toefy and Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim emerged as key leaders, but Toefy resigned in November 1997 “to broaden his horizons”.
Since late 1996 Edries has kept a low profile and has not been associated with the anti-drug vigilantes, but he, Parker and Jaffer have been targets of violence.
In April 1997 an M26 hand grenade exploded at Edries’s house while his family was out, damaging walls, windows and furniture.
Fellow ousted former leader Parker was shot and injured outside his Athlone, Cape Flats, home in 1998. In July 1999 Jaffer was killed in his bakkie near his Ottery home. Pagad members have been charged with both attacks.
Edries’s arrest is the latest twist in the state’s long legal battle to get to the bottom of the fatal assault of Staggie, who was beaten, shot and set alight during a thousands-strong Pagad march to his Salt River house on August 4 1996.
The state’s case against Pagad supporter Ozeer Booley collapsed in the Cape High Court in early 1998 when a key state witness changed his statement.
The subsequent inquest was abandoned, but only after the court heard that police had received dozens of intelligence reports warning of Pagad’s potential for violence. Such intelligence reports also stated that the Staggie twins the survivor, Rashied Staggie, two years ago announced he had found God and had reformed would be targeted, although on the night in question the information pointed to an attack on their Sea Point house.
The trial of Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim for Staggie’s murder was initially set down for last November, almost a year after he was first arrested. But the last-minute arrest of Abader, Abdurazak Ebrahim and Mohamed again delayed proceedings.
On the sidelines of this legal wrangling, the state and media organisations have remained at loggerheads over making available the footage of Staggie’s killing.
The first media subpoenas were issued and then withdrawn during the 1998 inquest. On International Press Freedom Day last year, members of the Scorpions seized unedited footage at the SABC, but nothing at either Reuters or Associated Press, after new subpoenas were issued.