A dispute with the Legal Aid Board (LAB) has once again delayed the Boeremag treason trial.
Provisionally postponing the trial to Thursday this week, trial Judge Eben Jordaan said it was alarming that the LAB had, more than five weeks on, still not provided some of the defence advocates with an answer to their request for funding to prepare applications for the discharge of their clients on some of the charges against them.
He said the wheels of the legal process could not work if all the gears did not cooperate and it was high time that the LAB realised it was also a gear in the machine that should start working.
Jordaan said the chances were not good that the trial would actually continue on Thursday, as defence counsel had a large amount of evidence to work through. The trial record alone comprises more than 28 000 pages.
The LAB, however, on Monday denied responsibility for the delay of the trial.
”Any outstanding payments alleged by practitioners can only be ascribed to the practitioner concerned not submitting his account to the LAB,” the board said.
The board said nine attorneys representing the accused submitted applications for additional preparation fees towards the end of June. The cost of the request was in excess of R600 000.
”In order to properly consider the merits of this application as well as noting the high cost of additional fees requested, the LAB had to gather various pieces of information regarding this case.”
The fees approved were considered adequate and that decision was communicated to the attorneys concerned on July 20.
”We would also like to confirm that all accounts submitted by the Boeremag practitioners have been paid in accordance with our tariffs.”
The prosecution last month closed its case more than four years after the trial commenced.
The state alleges the 21 accused had been part of a right-wing plot to overthrow the African National Congress government and had been responsible for a series of bomb explosions, including an explosion at a railway line in Soweto in 2002, which resulted in the death of a woman.
The plot allegedly also involved a plan to murder former president Nelson Mandela with a car bomb.
The accused have denied guilt on 42 charges, including high treason, terrorism, sabotage, murder, attempted murder, the illegal possession of explosives, firearms and ammunition and causing a series of explosions.
The accused are all on legal aid and the trial has so far cost the LAB more than R11-million, with many millions of rands more being spent on the salaries of the prosecuting team, the high security transport of the accused between the court and jail and the large police contingent securing the trial.
Two of the accused, Herman van Rooyen and Rudi Gouws, managed to escape from the court cells in May last year, despite the tight security measures. They managed to evade police for nine months before being rearrested.
A Limpopo farmer, Jaco Bogaards, and his wife Bess are presently on trial in the Modimolle (Nylstroom) Regional Court for allegedly aiding the two while they were on the run.
Thirteen of the accused are still in custody, while another man, Herman Scheepers, died last year of a virus he contracted in jail. — Sapa