Mystery brown shoe
box keeps Musa in court
Kenworthy News Media, 17 September 2014
Swazi student leader Musa Ngubeni insists that the charges
of possession of explosives against him are fabricated and political, and that
the state has more or less deliberately stalled his case for over three years
due to lack of evidence, writes
Kenworthy News Media.
“The brown shoe box was never produced in court, so I am not
really sure what I have to answer for in this case,” Musa Ngubeni tells me. He
is speaking of a box full of wires, explosives and detonators that the Swazi
state claims was found near his home in Mbikwakhe in 2011, but which the
prosecution has failed to produce.
Ngubeni was subsequently detained, tortured, and charged
with possession of explosives during a spate of democracy demonstrations in the
absolute monarchy of Swaziland in April 2011 together with fellow Swazi student
leader Maxwell Dlamini.
Initially one of the prosecution witnesses had claimed that
the explosives were too dangerous to bring to court. Then the explosives had
apparently exploded after a South African bomb expert had allegedly tried to
assemble it.
When Musa’s attorney requested to have the remnants of the
explosives presented in court, the prosecution asked to use undated photographs
apparently taken by the South African bomb expert of what they claimed was the
remnants of the explosives as evidence. The judge refused.
According to Musa Ngubeni, other claims by the prosecution
that he had shown them the box of explosives are also unfounded. “The
prosecution alleged that I led them to a pointing out exercise but the
prosecution witness who claimed to have taken photos of the pointing out
exercise has failed to produce any photos showing me pointing out anything,” he
says.
“A pointing exercise requires that after it has taken place
it must be reduced to writing by the pointing out officer and later be
submitted to court as admission. But no admission note to pointing was produced
in court.”
The fact that the state has not produced any evidence
against Musa Ngubeni ought to have resulted in him being acquitted. But while
Maxwell Dlamini was finally cleared of the same charges against him last week
(although he is still in prison due to other equally questionable charges),
Ngubeni will have to contend with further months or years of strenuous bail
conditions and an expensive court case.
“The bail conditions require me to report to Mbabane Police
Headquarters which is 40 kilometres from my home, which means I have to spend
1400 dollars per year on transport,” Musa Ngubeni explains. “I also need
financial assistance for my legal fees. This is all financially draining to
me.”
That Ngubeni’s passport is confiscated, as part of his tough
bail conditions, also means that he can’t register for his final year at
law-school at the South African University UNISA.
He got his Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of
Swaziland in 2010 before he was arrested, and did his first year of his
Master’s degree at the University of South Africa in 2013. In his final year he
is expected to meet with his project supervisor in South Africa, however, which
will prove challenging as his passport was confiscated as part of his bail conditions.
As Wandile Dludlu, Coordinator at the Swaziland United
Democratic Front, explained in a debate about lengthy trials such as Musa’s on
the South African eNews Channel Africa earlier in the month, “the judicial
system [in Swaziland] is used as a weapon by his majesty’s government to deal
with those who disagree with the system. But also as a warning and as a message
to would-be activists or proponents of democracy.”
But Musa, who was a very active student representative
council chairperson during a series of student protests when he studied at the
University of Swaziland in 2008/09, says he will not be intimidated. “I will
remain unshaken and climb every branch of this tree to the very last, where
justice will finally prevail.”
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