Palace of Justice |
62 |
I went to court early because I still needed to talk to Labuschagne about the likelihood of his being found guilty. I went up the thirteen steps at the main entrance on the Square. The main atrium was deserted except for the security officers at the front desk. The smell of dust and detergent hung heavily in the air and shiny particles floated in the streams of sunlight coming through the large skylights overhead. The echoes of my footsteps followed me up the staircase to the robing room. I left my luggage in the robing room. I fully intended to leave as soon as I could get away.
Court C was equally deserted and I put my papers down at the defence table. I took one last look around the room. The dock was cold and impersonal. I went to look for Labuschagne and walked past the prosecutors’ table before I took the staircase to the cells below. Below the court there was no comfort. Everything was cold and grey, damp brick and mortar, cold cement on the bare floors and walls. There was no one in Cell 6 either. The door was open, so I entered through the narrow doorway bending my knees slightly. I went to look for the cell sergeant and found other equally cold cells and sparsely equipped toilets down the passage. The cell sergeant was nowhere to be found downstairs. Upstairs the security men told me the cell sergeant had left to fetch the prisoners for the day’s cases. I went down again and sat down in Cell 6 and considered the best way to tell Labuschagne that he might be found guilty and that we needed to plan for that outcome. There was no easy way to tell him.
Wierda and I had already concluded that there was no further evidence available to us; we would have to argue the matter on the evidence already given. If the Court found that the evidence we had produced was insufficient to create a reasonable doubt, then we hoped to persuade the Court that the evidence in any event established extenuating circumstances sufficient to avoid the mandatory death sentence. But seven deaths were not easy to ignore. If we couldn’t persuade the Court that the circumstances and events in Maximum had turned Labuschagne into an automaton at the reservoir we would have to argue that those same circumstances and events were sufficient to render his actions less blameworthy; that from a moral perspective they were, somehow, less reprehensible. But again, seven deaths were as difficult to justify as they were to explain.
I paced up and down in the cell. The graffiti provided an escape from the depressing business of the trial, and I again felt myself drawn to the scribbles in so many different hands.
MANDELA
SAYS NO EASY
WALK TO FREEDOM
We certainly had not had an easy road to travel either. It was difficult to imagine freedom at its end.
Perhaps there was some hope, a possibility of an outright acquittal. I checked my watch. Court was due to start in a few minutes and there was still no sign of the cell sergeant. I went back up and found that the courtroom was filling up rapidly. I beckoned Wierda to follow me down to Cell 6.
‘If he is convicted, I’ll argue extenuating circumstances immediately, as we’ve planned,’ I told him. ‘And then I plan to leave as soon as the sentence has been passed. We can talk about appeals later. It will be your job to take care of him after he has been sentenced.’
Wierda nodded and then pointed at an inscription on the graffiti-covered wall behind me. It was an extract from the Freedom Charter:
THE PREAMBLE OF THE CHARTER
AND THE WORLD TO KNOW, THAT SOUTH AFRICA BELONGS TO
ALL WHO LIVE IN IT, BLACK AND WHITE, AND THAT NO
GOVERNMENT CAN JUSTLY CLAIM AUTHORITY
UNLESS IT IS BASED ON THE WILL OF ALL
THE PEOPLE O’POVU FIRST
I looked at the words and wondered. Would Nelson Mandela, if he were ever to be sworn in as our first black President, keep its fundamental promise, or would it turn out to be empty political rhetoric like that of the Voortrekkers and Verwoerd?
We waited for Labuschagne to arrive, but eventually had no choice but to return to the courtroom.
‘How long will it be before they hang him, do you think?’ Wierda asked me as we took our seats.
I did not have the strength to answer. Six months to a year.
Court started ten minutes late; there had been some trouble with the prisoners at the police cells, delaying their transport to court, and I never got the chance to speak to Labuschagne.
Roshnee took her seat at her usual place behind Wierda and me, with Marianne Schlebusch and Dr Shapiro on either side of her. The atmosphere in the courtroom was very solemn, almost funereal. Sanet Niemand came over to speak to Wierda to reach agreement about the fate of the exhibits after the verdict had been announced. In case of a conviction Labuschagne’s gun would be forfeited to the State, but if he were by any chance to be acquitted the gun would be returned to him.
When she entered the courtroom, the registrar came directly to me where I was sitting at the defence table and made me a whispered offer.
‘I’ve made arrangements with the security staff so that you can take him out through the back entrance when the verdict has been announced,’ she said. I felt the heat of her breath in my ear.
Before I could discuss the significance of the registrar’s offer with Wierda, Judge van Zyl and his Assessors were escorted into the courtroom.
‘The defendant may be seated,’ said Judge van Zyl when he had made himself comfortable. ‘The judgment will take some time.’
He waited for Labuschagne to sit down before he continued.
‘We are not united in our findings on the facts and there will be a majority verdict. I shall read the judgment of the majority first. Their verdict will be the verdict of the Court. After that, I shall read the opinion of the dissenting member of the Court. I would ask the spectators to remain calm and behave with the decorum that they have maintained until now in this very difficult case.’
Wierda swallowed hard next to me. I was about to put him out of his misery, but when I turned towards him he had his pencil between his teeth again.
Tap, tap, tap.
I didn’t listen to the judgment with any degree of attention. The winner only wants to know that he has won. The loser, on the other hand, wants to know the reasons why he has lost. I busied myself with the Death Sentence Registers dating back to 1902. They were full of curious details, and as the Judge neared the end of the judgment, my finger found my friend Oupa’s murderer in the register:
| NO. | DATE | NAME OF PRISONER | JUDGE | PLACE | OUTCOME | DATE |
| 1266 | 7.2.63 | Johannes Hendrik Buchling (E.M.) | De Vos | Pretoria | Executed | 24.5.63 |
Through the skylights I could still see banks of clouds moving slowly across the city. When I turned to watch the spectators they were straining to hear; Judge van Zyl was making no effort to ensure that they could hear him in the last rows of the gallery. There were nods of agreement when the Judge dealt with particular facts or events, when he recorded the Court’s acceptance or rejection of items of evidence, and when he noted the Court’s impressions of the demeanour and credibility of the most important witnesses. From time to time the spectators made their views heard. There were sighs of assent every so often, and murmurs of dissent, but otherwise the courtroom was quiet, eerily so, with the clouds outside dictating the mood below the skylights and the copper chandelier within.
The judgment ended with the words, ‘Mr Labuschagne, please stand up.’ Labuschagne stood up but kept his eyes on the floor. The Judge addressed him directly. ‘Mr Labuschagne, we therefore find, by a majority, that the State has not proved that your actions at the reservoir were the voluntary acts of a conscious mind, and you are found not guilty and you are discharged. You are free to leave. The Court is adjourned.’ When Judge van Zyl and the Assessors had left, Wierda jumped up and went over to the dock. His handshake ended in a huge hug. Labuschagne’s parents and Antoinette joined him in an emotional scrum. Eventually Wierda broke loose and came back to his seat.
‘You didn’t tell me what we would do if he was found not guilty.’
‘I’m going home. You can take care of it from here,’ I said.
I stayed in my seat and pretended to fuss with my papers until the courtroom had emptied. Antoinette came back to give me a hug. My tears stained the collar of her blouse.
I found James Murray in the robing room, stuffing his robes into his bag.
‘Well done,’ he said, extending his hand.
I didn’t know what to say. When he released my hand, he added, ‘I wouldn’t have thought anyone could pull that off.’
‘I suspect it would have been very different if the Warrant Officer hadn’t gone and killed himself,’ I ventured.
‘For sure,’ he said.
‘But you know,’ he added, ‘in a way I’m glad. Pretoria can’t afford a case like this.’
I asked Murray to accompany me to the Judge’s chambers to say goodbye. I had been a visitor to his jurisdiction and I had to pay homage to convention.
Judge van Zyl was not very talkative. The Assessors were filling in their claim forms for submission to the Chief Registrar’s office. They were being paid per day for their participation and were to be reimbursed for expenses.
I saw a blank death warrant on the Judge’s side table.
We shook hands and James Murray and I left.
‘Who do you think was the dissenter?’ I asked him when we had returned to the robing room.
‘The Judge,’ he said.
‘Really?’ I was stunned. Usually the Judge is able to persuade the Assessors to his view. ‘What makes you think so?’
‘I know.’ He let the answer hang in the air.
Murray and I parted company with another handshake.
After a while I slipped out through the back entrance, leaving Wierda with Labuschagne to brave the gauntlet of flashbulbs and television cameras on the front steps. In the street behind the Palace of Justice I found a taxi driver who was prepared to take me to the airport. I closed my eyes when the door slammed shut behind me.
Kellunck
Shoosh
Wham
I looked back at the Palace of Justice as we went round the Square. It stood serene in the afternoon light and gave no hint of the history that had played itself out within its walls. In the taxi I closed my eyes and tried to think of ships and shipping and of boys running on the beach.
The flight attendant on the Boeing handed me the paper. An elderly couple had been murdered on their farm. Two men had shot dead a taxi driver. There were rumours of a battle in Angola, with many casualties. A policeman had shot his wife and children and then turned the gun on himself.
On page three I found the names of the men who were in the Pot when we had our second inspection. They were the ones who must have felt the tremor in the walls when we had the Major push the lever and let the trapdoors slam against the stoppers:
MORE EXECUTIONS AT CENTRAL
The following men were executed on Wednesday in Pretoria Central Prison: Damon Willemse, Japie Samuels, Willem Lewis, Abraham Koelman, Tholi Selby Mnguni, Alpheus Banda.
Willemse, Samuels, Lewis and Koelman were sentenced to death in Cape Town on 2 February last year. Mnguni was sentenced to death in Durban on 29 January this year and Banda in Vanderbijlpark on 21 April this year.
There are more than 200 prisoners still awaiting execution at Central.
In the cycle of killing there is a beginning, but no end.