African Treason Trial Resumes

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28314, 27 June 1957, Page 13

African Treason Trial Resumes

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, June 26. The Johannesburg treason trial —which the “Manchester Guardian” describes as “one of the oddest and nastiest phenomena of contemporary Africa” —has resumed its sittings after a month’s recess and the 156 defendants have once more gathered in the Johannesburg drill hall. The Crown is presenting more than 10,000 documents in evidence and the hearing is unlikely to finish before the end of August. Those defendants who are sent to a higher Court can expect to be in the dock until April or May of next year. The trial itself, striking at the roots of opposition to apartheid, has not changed its flavour, says the Johannesburg correspondent of the paper. Crown witnesses drone away through hours with verbatim reports of political meetings intended to prove that many organisations represented by the defendants were linked in a treasonable (because Com-munist-inspired) conspiracy. But it seems improbable that the prosecution will carry the charge of high treason to a Higher Court, especially as the chief exponent on the meaning of communism has yet to be examined.

Some defendants, though, may have their charges commuted to offences under the Suppression of Communism Act or other laws from the wide repertoire of Nationalist legislation.