Apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson is to know on Friday whether he will be re-tried for crimes he was acquitted of more than three years ago.
The Constitutional Court is to pass judgement in an appeal bid by the state aimed at paving the way for Basson’s re-prosecution.
If it gave the go-ahead, a retrial was expected to commence within three months and last about a year.
Since hearing five days of arguments in February, the judges have been considering contentions that international law and South Africa’s Constitution required a ”proper” adjudication of at least some of the crimes Basson was acquitted of.
The 11 judges had to decide whether to condone apparent defects in the state’s case against Basson in the broader public interest.
Advocates for the two sides had asked the court to find a balance between the interests of justice and an individual’s Constitutional right to a free and fair trial.
Basson headed the apartheid government’s chemical and biological warfare programme.
He was initially charged with 67 criminal counts. After six charges were quashed and he got a discharge on several others, Basson was acquitted in the Pretoria High Court in April 2002 on 46 charges — including murder, drug trafficking and fraud and theft involving about R37-million.
In 2003, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein dismissed an application by the state to reserve for readjudication certain questions of law arising from the acquittal. The state then turned to the Constitutional Court.
If its bid was successful, the state intended launching a retrial within three months, Wim Trengove, for the state, told the court in February. A new trial should last about a year.
The state contested the correctness of Basson’s acquittal on the basis of trial judge Willie Hartzenberg’s refusal to recuse himself on the grounds of bias, his decision not to admit he bail record as evidence in the trial, and his quashing of six charges related to alleged offences committed beyond South Africa’s borders. – Sapa