A BLACKMAIL CHARGE

Evening Star, Issue 12732, 5 August 1907, Page 6

A BLACKMAIL CHARGE

AX EDITOR ACQUITTED

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

PRETORIA, August 4 (Received August 5, at 8.40 a.m.)

Bieytenback was sentenced to three years' penal eervitude for attempting to blackmail General Botha, the Transvaal Premier, by alleging that the Premier had: been bribed by the dynamite concessionaries before the war. Mr Do Plnas, editor of th© 'Land En Volk,' after a. favorable summing up by fcho Judge, was acquitted and discharged without a stain on his character. Mr Do Haas has declared that ho will ku« the Grown for unjustifiable arrest. [Mr Do Haas, editor of 'Land en Vo3k,' Mr Vandeventer, and Mr Brevtcnbach wore charged with attempting to blackmail General Botha. Counsel for the Crown alleged that the two last-named accused General Botha of accepting a bribe of £2,000 from the dynamite concessionaries before the war, and that they had demanded £2,000 from money from the General. The Crown also alleged that Do Haas was an accessory. General Botha flatly denied thai he had received a bribe., a statement which had, he pointed out, been already disproved in a letter sent by Mr Alfred Lyttelton to ' The Times' and published on July 9, 1905. A newspaper was mulcted in £250 damages and costs hist year for publishing this charge.]