Cape Town | Wednesday
A JUDGE on Tuesday ruled that an English court order forcing foreign journalists in South Africa to hand over video footage of a vigilante lynching was invalid.
Cape Town High Court Judge Jeannette Traverso found that international news agencies Reuters and Associated Press (AP) did not have to submit video footage of druglord Rashaad Staggie’s murder to the state.
The news agencies were in June ordered by an English court to give the footage to prosecutors to use as evidence in the trial of Staggie’s alleged killers.
But Traverso said the state prosecutors did not follow proper procedure in seeking recourse to the British justice system and therefore the ruling against Reuters and the AP did not apply.
Traverso said the prosecutors’ conduct — they did not inform the defence attorneys — was so serious that it merited investigation.
The prosecutors went to court in England because Reuters and AP had shipped their footage to their offices in London to sidestep attempts by the state to seize it.
The state prosecutors claim that the video material is critical evidence against five members of the vigilante group People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) who are on trial in Cape Town for killing Staggie.
He was shot and set alight in the Cape Town suburb of Saltriver in August 1996 during a protest march by PAGAD supporters.
The foreign and local media have refused to release videos, notes and photographs taken at the murder scene, arguing that it would put journalists’ lives at risk.
But prosecutors claim that witnesses are too fearful to testify against members of the vigilante movement.
A number of potential witnesses have been shot dead in the past two years, as well as a magistrate who was hearing a case against Pagad members.
The directorate of public prosecution on Tuesday said it would appeal against Judge Traverso’s judgement.
“We are currently studying Tuesday’s judgement and also seeking legal advice with the intention to appeal as soon as possible,” it said in a statement. – AFP