Eight of the Boeremag treason trialists refused to attend their trial in Pretoria on Monday because of the alleged inhumane conditions at Pretoria’s local prison.
Their counsel, Piet Pistorius, told the court he had instructions to launch an urgent application about the jail conditions, which he said prevented them from preparing properly for the trial. They claimed it would result in them not having a fair trial.
Their complaints include filthy jail conditions, broken cell windows, a refusal to allow them contact visits and the food. Pistorius said letters would be sent to the Minister of Correctional Services, Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission and International Red Cross.
Judge Eben Jordaan said he hoped ”sanity would prevail” and that whoever was responsible for conditions in jail would attend to the accused’s complaints to avoid yet a further urgent application.
The Correctional Services deparment had already lost one such urgent application and was saddled with the legal costs. Jordaan declined to make a ruling at this stage in an application by three of the accused — brothers Mike and Andre du Toit and Koos du Plessis — to have their further prosecutions stopped.
They claimed they had been irreparably prejudiced by the police’s confiscation of a privileged document, setting out their defence. The three claimed the prosecution had adapted its case on the strength of their defence set out in the document. He said it would be ”premature and irresponsible” to make a ruling at this stage.
The judge said their defence — which amounted to a total denial — had already been revealed during their bail applications. In their evidence, they referred to only a few witness statements they claimed had been altered, while the actual statements were not among those before the court — some 600.
Jordaan said the court would only be able to determine if the state’s case had been adapted at the end of the trial, after hearing the evidence. He said the state would not be able to use any of the information in the document in their case.
The trial was provisionally postponed to Wednesday, October 29, but it is unlikely that the state will be able to call its first witness on that date. – Sapa