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were all there, a formidable array. We looked at them a little curiously then; only Bram Fischer, Vernon Berrangé and Tony O’Dowd were well known to us; these three had always been our friends. Bram had stood beside us in the political struggle, Vernon had fought many of our legal battles. There was John Coaker too, who had been with us throughout the long Preparatory Examination, and Chris Plewman who was to do such stalwart work in the long months to come. But Maisels, Nicholas, Kentridge: to almost all of us they were then just names, legal giants, prominent in their own sphere, but to us still unknown people.
Isie Maisels, the leader, dominated the proceedings from the outset; a giant of a man in intellect and physique. He commanded the respect of the whole Court and we had admired him from our distance during the argument on the indictment. When he came to deal with Professor Murray, the Crown’s expert on Communist doctrine, in October and November, we came to know him; we listened delighted as he chased the learned professor backwards and forwards, exposed his weaknesses and his bias, challenging him on every pronouncement, on every document on which he had relied. But for us the greatest joy of all was when Maisels delivered his mighty attack on racial discrimination; he took Professor Murray meticulously through every one of the Acts of Parliament that discriminated against non-whites, forcing him to concede the harsh realities of the life of the non-whites. He pointed to forced farm labour, farm prisons, imprisonments for failure to pay rent, deportation without trial, pass raids; the accused listened, as only those can listen whose daily life is made up of discrimination. The faces of the judges were impassive as they heard this powerful indictment of Nationalist policy, but at one stage Mr Justice Rumpff queried the object of putting these statistics to the witness. “Where will it stop?” he asked.
“Where did the Crown stop?” Advocate Maisels retorted. He intended to show that our real inspiration was the miserable conditions of the non-whites, not “varying degrees of Communist fanaticism” as alleged by the Crown. We nodded our heads in enthusiastic agreement, and our admiration for this uncompromising challenger of injustice soared high. As time went by, we drew closer to this great son of Africa who was so soon to be lost to our country, to become a judge of the Rhodesian High Court.
Sydney Kentridge used to delight us with his lively exchanges with the Judges and with the Crown. Within the first three weeks of the trial, he dealt effectively with the alternative charges under the Suppression of Communism Act.
“My learned friend [Mr G Hoexter for the Crown] suggested that it might be necessary to apply surgery to the alternative charges. I submit, My Lord, that they should be buried.”
Mr Justice Bekker: “There’s still life in them yet!”
Mr Kentridge: “Then I would suggest, My Lord, that your Lordships should quietly put them out of their misery.”
When Kentridge was on his feet we would listen expectantly, for he would fearlessly challenge any suspected infringement of the rights of the accused and Counsel. His argument was lucid, positive, deliberate, delivered in a clear cool voice, the very absence of emotion making it even more effective. With the accused he was a little reserved, but anxious over our well-being, especially during our detention.
It was Kentridge who so pointedly brought the Arlow judgement right in to the case on the very morning that it was delivered, on 28 March 1960. Arlow and Hattingh, two policemen, had been charged with illegally shooting and killing an African – the case was headlines and we waited eagerly for the verdict. A note had reached us as ‘Culpable homicide. Fined £75 and £25.’
At that time Advocate Kentridge was examining the witness Dr Conco, Accused Number 30.
Advocate Kentridge: “Dr Conco, I think in connection with the Defiance Campaign you were asked whether that sort of defiance would increase respect for law, and you gave an answer. In your view do you think that the Pass laws, for instance, and the arrests under the Pass laws, increase respect for law?”
Dr Conco: “No, they don’t.”
Advocate Kentridge: “Supposing for instance you had the case of a policeman shooting a man unlawfully and being found guilty of culpable homicide and being fined £25, do you think that increases respect for law?”
Dr Conco: “Among Africans that does not increase respect for law. In fact, it creates a very big resentment against the law.”
And when Mr Trengove broke in to ask what was meant by the question, Kentridge replied blandly, “I’ll inform my learned friend at the argument stage, My Lord.”
Bram Fischer and Vernon Berrangé were the two Counsel who, though so vastly different in personality and technique, were yet the closest to us. These two not only knew that we were innocent of high treason, of any conspiracy to overthrow the State by violence, they also knew that we were right. Vernon had been our god during the long months of the Preparatory Examination in the Drill Hall. He fought our battles for us, ever ready to take up the cudgels on our behalf. He had clashed with the magistrate, Mr Wessels, on many an occasion, championing his 156 clients. Medium in height and build, always impeccably dressed, he was a joy to behold as he would systematically demolish the Crown witnesses. Long before the trial itself began, the name of Vernon Berrangé struck fear into the hearts of police witnesses, because of his incomparable and merciless skill in exposing unreliable or dishonest evidence. Only the utmost truth and sincerity could ever stand against this supreme master of cross-examination. He would begin gently enough, lulling the witness into usually false confidence, and then the attack would begin, and he would take the report of a meeting and tear it piece by piece into shreds, ridiculing the witness into a state of gibbering confusion. At the peak of the cross-examination he would pause, ask his question, and then deliberately look away, as though indifferent to the answer. But well we knew that by this time there would be only one answer the witness could give. Vernon had seen to that.
“Are you serious?” he would say icily, and then he would move in for the kill. One after another we saw them destroyed by Vernon – Special Branch detectives Sharp, Segoni, Masileke and some others whom even the Crown did not dare to produce again at the trial itself. It was Vernon who first challenged Professor Murray in the days of the Preparatory Examination; it was Vernon who then exposed the disgraceful efforts of the Crown to smear the Congress with riots, hut burning, school burning – efforts that were not repeated during the trial itself. Tireless, fearless, confident, he systematically destroyed the Crown witnesses, turning them inside out with his fast-following question, so deliberately and brilliantly planned.
In the Special Court we expected Vernon to renew his attack on the police witnesses, and we anticipated gleefully the clashes that we thought there would be. But we were wrong. To the trial came a dignified and disarming Vernon, the controlled Counsel of the Supreme Court, not the fighting tiger of the magistrate’s court. But as we listened and rejoiced again in his deadly cross-examination of the police witnesses, we knew it was the same Vernon. He had laid the foundation during the Preparatory Examination, and for those who survived to face him in the trial itself, Vernon was waiting.
Bram Fischer was Vernon’s opposite: sturdily built, fresh-complexioned, with a gentle, almost boyish face, despite his now greying hair. But that gentle face was deceptive, for underneath Bram was indomitable, one of the most brilliant of advocates. He could pursue his way with a Crown witness just as relentlessly as Vernon; silver-tongued, he won the confidence of his witness with gentle skill. He didn’t chase his witness into a corner and pin him down, indeed he never raised his voice, but in the end somehow, the witness turned out to have said just what Bram wanted him to say. We marvelled at his unerring technique. I think the Crown did, too, when they realised the fatal concessions their witnesses were making so unsuspectingly.
The Crown began to lead their witnesses. Pirow was there in his special chair, slumping into it, almost disappearing from sight, his voice rasping as ever, but he took no part in the leading of evidence. And he was only to sit there for another two months, until his death on 13 October.
There was Van Niekerk, who had been leader of the Crown team in the Drill Hall during the Preparatory Examination: tall, rumpled as before, we remembered him fumbling with his files; he led the first Crown witness and we could not fit him in very well with the formality and discipline