Decision time for treason trial 15 Werner Menges THE defence lawyer representing 15 of the accused in the main Caprivi high treason trial has been given up to the end of September to make a decision about what her clients’ next step in their trial would be. By 30 September, defence lawyer Ilse Agenbach should have taken instructions from her 15 clients on whether they will be testifying in their own defence, or want to close their respective defence cases, Judge Elton Hoff said when he postponed the trial on Thursday last week. Judge Hoff granted Agenbach a postponement to next Monday after he dismissed her second attempt to raise an argument by her 15 clients to the effect that Namibia’s High Court Act and other legislation do not apply to most of the current Zambezi Region. Agenbach gave notice in the High Court at Windhoek Central Prison on Wednesday last week that her clients want to ask the court to consider and rule on two points of law. Those are the question whether the High Court Act applies to the territory formerly described as the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel, and whether other Namibian legislation such as the Arms and Ammunition Act, the Defence Act and the Police Act apply in the same territory. The court was notified that her 15 clients contend that these Namibian laws do not apply to the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel, which was the name under which most of the current Zambezi Region was known before Namibia’s Independence. With the prosecution and Agenbach’s colleagues united in their opposition to the request to raise the points of law, Judge Hoff dismissed the bid to raise those points on Thursday. In his ruling Judge Hoff said in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act a trial court can reserve a question of law to be considered by an appeal court. Thus, it is not for the trial court to consider such a point of law, and the appeal court would consider such points only following a conviction of an accused person, he said. As a result Judge Hoff ruled that a point of law can only be raised at the end of a trial. Agenbach gave notice of her clients’ request to raise the points of law after an application in which they wanted to challenge the jurisdiction of the High Court over the territory previously known as the Eastern Caprivi Zipfel, and to question the applicability of Namibian laws in that territory and the legality of their arrest and prosecution, was struck from the court roll by Judge Hoff on Tuesday. That sort of jurisdiction challenge should have been raised at the very start of the trial almost ten years ago, Judge Hoff ruled. Agenbach became involved in the trial only in March this year, after the Directorate of Legal Aid asked her to represent 15 accused who had been boycotting most of the trial for years. Her clients were part of a group of accused persons who informed the court in March 2007 that they would no longer be attending their trial, but that they would return to court after the prosecution had closed its case. Some of them stopped participating in the trial in early 2005 already, after they and their defence lawyers parted ways when the lawyers refused to raise the same challenge to the court’s jurisdiction that Agenbach attempted to get the court to consider last week. After their defence lawyers withdrew from representing them at the start of February 2005, one of the newly unrepresented accused, Martin Tubaundule, who is now one of Agenbach’s clients, told Judge Hoff that he and the other members of their group considered themselves to be Caprivians, and not Namibians. Tubaundule, who was a primary school headmaster in the former Caprivi Region before his arrest, also told the judge that it was the stance of his group that no Namibian court had the jurisdiction to try them over offences allegedly committed in the former Caprivi Region, which they do not consider as being part of Namibia. The 65 accused remaining on trial before Judge Hoff are facing a total of 278 charges, which include counts of high treason, sedition, murder and attempted murder, in connection with an alleged conspiracy to secede the then Caprivi Region from Namibia between 1992 and 2002. - See more at: namibian.na/indexx.php?id=3959&page_type=story_detail#sthash.M6OgGjau.dpuf
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 16:22:49 +0000
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