Comrade Bhekinkosi W Mvovo, do you know about this cases? Can your union
not launch a campaign to get justice for these workers?
A 13-YEAR JUDICIAL TRAVESTY
The final act in a 13-year travesty of justice drama began shortly after
midnight on Thursday last week. In a scene reminiscent of the apartheid
era, four cars screeched to a halt outside a house in the Cape Flats
township of Delft. Uniformed men, wearing flak jackets, leapt out, several
of them vaulting the gate to bang on the door of the house.
They were not police. They were soldiers and they had come to deliver to
the home of Donovan Leibrandt, warrants of arrest for Leibrandt and for
Leontoane Rantai, two former naval ratings and early members of military
trade unions.
I have written about the case in this column three times over the past 13
years and I make no apology for doing so again. In all this time, I have
not come across a legal matter that is more — as several lawyers have said
— of a travesty. It is almost incidental that I became involved because
the men were members of then unrecognised unions that were opposed by the
military hierarchy.
In 1998 Donovan Leibrandt was a member of the putative South African
National Defence Union (Sandu) that took the union membership issue to the
constitutional court in 1999 and won. Leontoane Rantai belonged to the
then also unrecognised South African Security Forces Union (Sasfu).
Both were naval ratings and they faced what their attorney described,
accurately, as a “common purpose charge”. The attorney was Cecil Burgess,
now an ANC member of parliament, and he was defending them on the very
serious matter of arson.
What was made clear from the outset was that neither Donovan Leibrandt nor
Leontoane Rantai had set fire to anything. And no evidence was led that
they had been at the scene of any arson either before, during or after the
event. But it was alleged that they had known about, and been involved
with, an attempt to burn down the records office at the Simonstown naval
base.
Thomas Ramalahla also a naval rating and, like Rantai, a former member of
the ANC’s armed wing, umKhonto weSizwe (MK), broke into the office,
carrying cans of petrol, and set about trying to burn the place down. But
he set himself on fire and fled the scene, suffering grievous burns in the
process.
Leibrandt and Rantai later met up with the critically injured Ramalahla,
wrapped him in a wet duvet and drove him to hospital where he later died.
Where they found him and the circumstances of his transport to hospital are
matters of dispute between the prosecution and defence.
However, Rantai was detained by the military police and held in detention
barracks where he underwent three days and nights of “physical
interrogation” that resulted in a confession of involvement. At the time
of his court martial, Rantai admitted: “After three days I agreed to
anything the military police told me to say.”
Burgess pointed out that the confession, extracted under “torture”, was
clearly inadmissable. Both Leibrandt and Rantai also did not trust the
military to provide a fair trial and, together with Burgess, demanded to be
tried in a civilian court.
The navy twice rejected this appeal and ordered courts martial. So began a
tortuous, lengthy, and at times almost farcical, saga.
After three years, the case against the two men was dismissed on a
technicality: the charges had prescribed because of delays for which the
military admitted responsibility. The men went back to work, only to be
arrested again — and charged in the civilian court in Wynberg.
“A travesty,” said Burgess. Sandu and Sasfu agreed. Having elected a
court martial and having failed with a prosecution, the navy should not be
allowed to “have a another go”.
But the case went ahead and the magistrate, in a controversial decision,
dismissed the alibi advanced by Leibrandt and admitted the confession by
Rantai. The men were found guilty and sentenced to eight years’ in jail.
Lawyers, who at various times have been involved in the case, admit that
none of the delays that then followed were caused by Leibrandt and Rantai.
And parts of the delayed appeal judgments delivered provide cause for
concern, one of them stating as fact that the men were at the scene of the
arson attempt.
“The delays up to that point were also extraordinary,” says Keith Gess, one
of the attorneys who, at one stage, dealt with the case. It is, he feels,
a classic example of justice delayed being justice denied.
“Looking at the record, it is diabolical what has happened,” says a Cape
Town attorney who does not wish to be named, because, he adds: “In my
position, I can’t be seen to criticise judges and judgements.”
However, after more than a decade of living in a legal limbo and battling
against what seemed insurmountable odds, Leontoane Rantai gave up and left
Cape Town without providing a forwarding address. Donovan Leibrandt,
without money for legal assistance, battled on, eventually drawing up, by
himself, a petition to the Constitutional Court.
He was waiting to be given the reasons for the constitutional court’s
negative ruling when the soldiers arrived at his door. So began the last,
frenetic act in this tragedy as Donovan Leibrandt tried — and failed — to
obtain an order halting the execution of the arrest warrant in the time
given.
On Wednesday morning, the same camouflage-uniformed army sergeant who had
been involved in last week’s raid, looked on as Donovan Leibrandt handed
himself over at the Wynberg court and two police constables took him into
custody. “The army was involved because we were told it was a military
matter,” the sergeant said.
I walked with Donovan Leibrandt and his clearly distraught wife, Zoliswa,
as he was escorted to the cells. “All I want is my life back,” were his
last words to me.
However, the curtain is yet to fall on the final act of this travesty. The
public protector and Lawyers for Human Rights have belatedly been
informed. And inquiries are being made into what might still be done in
the name of justice.
*Terry Bell*
writing, editing, broadcasting
specialising in:
political/economic analysis and labour
P.O Box 373, Muizenberg 7950
South Africa
Tel: +27 +(0)21 788 9699 • Fax: +27 +(0)21 788 9711
Skype: belnews
*Blog: terrybellwrites.wordpress.com*
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Mthimkulu Mashiya
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