DEAN’S TRIAL Bishop goes into witness-box

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32708, 10 September 1971, Page 11

DEAN’S TRIAL Bishop goes into witness-box

'(N.ZtP.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PRETORIA, September 9. A bishop went into the witness-box in Pretoria yesterday as the defence opened its case in the trial, under the Terrorism Act, of Gonville ffrench-Beytagh, aged 59, the Anglican Dean of Johannesburg.

The Bishop of Grahamstown (the Rt Rev. Bendyshe Burnett) was called to counter State evidence that the dean, an outspoken crusader against apartheid, had called at a church conference in Johannesburg for violent revolution. The bishop, and two other church ministers who were present at the conference, all said that they could not remember the dean saying, as the prosecution alleged, that violence and bloodshed in South Africa would be a good thing. Chief defence counsel (Mr Sidney Kentridge) drew the witness’s attention to the fact that the indictment accused the dean of inciting people at the conference to support violent revolution in order to overthrow the State. The bishop replied: “I did not myself feel so incited.” ffrench-Beytagh, who has pleaded not guilty to 10 charges involving plotting the violent overthrow of the South African Government, is due to give evidence later in the trial. As the State wound up its evidence yesterday, five weeks after the trial began.

Judge Petrus Cillie rejected a renewed defence application to have the trial venue changed from Pretoria to Johannesburg, where the defendant lives. The defence had urged again that travelling the 35 miles from Johannesburg every day was a strain for the dean, who has a heart ailment. The judge said that, if necessary, the Court could reduce the length of its hearings. Visit to China Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia will pay a State visit to China from October 6 to 12, at the invitation of the Peking Government. An Addis Ababa anouncement says that the visit is expected to enhance the cordial relations existing between Ethiopia and China. From Peking, the Emperor will fly on to Iran for the 2500th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. Addis Ababa, September 9.