The trial of 120 Namibians for alleged treason and participation in a failed separatist uprising six years ago resumed on Tuesday with the suspects requesting a ”political dialogue” with the government.
Speaking on behalf of the group supposedly active in Namibia’s restive Caprivi region, one of the accused, Martin Tubaundule, made the demand to Judge Elton Hoff.
”We ask for a political dialogue with the government because this is a political case and important issues cannot be disclosed until such a platform is created,” Tubaundule said.
He further complained that 30 of the 120 treason suspects had no legal defence.
”We were abandoned by the government lawyers allocated to us from the legal aid in February,” Tubaundule said, adding that ”they did this because they were intimidated and told if they defend us, they would bite the hand that was feeding them.”
The accused arrived in two prison trucks at the heavily guarded Windhoek prison hall, specially converted into a courtroom, singing a separatist anthem and wielding placards calling for an independent Caprivi. They shouted slogans against the Namibian president when they entered.
Court proceedings resumed after five months and were relocated to Windhoek after one government prosecutor died and two others were severely injured in two separate car accidents last May en route to a northeastern town where the trial was first held.
The accused were arrested following deadly attacks with rocket launchers, mortars and assault rifles at Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi strip on August 2, 1999, in which 13 people died.
The attacks targeted a police station, a border post, the local office of the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation, the Mpacha military base and a bank in Katima Mulilo, the main town in Caprivi. – Sapa-AFP