Court proceedings in the Eugene Terre’Blanche murder trial began in the high court sitting in Ventersdorp at 10.30am on Monday with Judge John Horn presiding.
Chris Mahlangu (28) and a minor are on trial for allegedly hacking the right-wing leader to death.
After two heavy security checks, 15 journalists and four members of the Terre’Blanche family were seated in room linked to the court by a closed-circuit television. The media were barred from sitting in the court room because one of the accused is a minor.
Scores of police officers gathered outside the courthouse from the early hours.
Uniformed Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) members milled around a gazebo listening to Afrikaans music playing loudly on a speaker. On trees around the court, supporters of the right-wing organisation had hung posters in the AWB colours.
Some of them had slogans reading: “Die boer is hier om te bly” (The boer is here to stay) and “Ons boere Afrikaner bloed” (Our boere Afrikaner blood).
The latter was written next to a picture of a politician with blood on his hands.
The 69-year-old former AWB leader was killed, allegedly by his two farm employees, in his North West farmhouse in April last year.
A post mortem report revealed Terre’Blanche suffered 28 injuries.
Mahlangu and the minor are charged with murder, housebreaking, attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances, and crimen injuria.
The teenager, who left school to become a herdsman for Terre’Blanche’s 97 cattle, was 15 years old at the time of the murder. — Sapa