By Thys Khiba – The High Court of South Africa; North West Division, sitting at the Mogwase Regional Court has removed the case against 17 miners accused of murder and other serious offences committed in Marikana in 2012 from the court roll on Friday, 10 March.
The defence attorneys have earlier indicated that they want all charges against the accused persons, who are mineworkers, to be dropped.
This comes the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed they are ready to proceed with the case against the 17 accused.
The matter was set for trial from 06 to 10 March 2023, however, on of the accused was not present on the first day and the matter was rolled over to the next day.
The NPA spokesperson Henry Mamothame said that they were trial ready on the matter.
“All the necessary documents were long exchanged between the state and the defence attorneys. The delays on trial are due to their review application to have all charges dropped,” said Mamothame said.
In Court:
The Acting Judge Andrew Reddy indicated that there are some considerations he made, particularly the rights of the accused to have a fair trial, the interest of the families of the deceased and the plight of the witnesses in the matter.
“The judge further made it clear that the removal of this matter is not a verdict but merely a pause to await the outcome of the review application registered by the accused persons,” said Mamothame.
The court heard that copies of the pronounced judgement will be shared with the Judge President of the North West High Court, Judge President of the Gauteng High Court Division, National Director of Public Prosecutions, Director of Public Prosecutions in the North West and the office of the State Attorney in Pretoria.
In doing so, Reddy hopes that this will expedite the conclusion of the review application.
Charges:
The NPA spokesperson Henry Mamothame confirmed the accused are charged with 7 counts of murder, 4 of malicious damage to property, 4 of robbery, 3 for unlawful possession of firearms and 3 for unlawful possession of ammunition.
“These charges are related to the labour disputes between mine workers of Lonmin Karee Mine and Impala Platinum Mine (Implats) and their employers when they participated in unprotected wage strikes that led to the loss of lives and damage to property,” said Mamothame.
Before the case was removed from the court roll, the stateindicated on the record that it was ready to proceed with the trial, however, the defence attorneys are reluctant to proceed as they want the matter to be postponed or struck off the roll, pending the outcome of the review application they registered with the Gauteng Division of the High Court, to have all charges against them withdrawn.
Meanwhile, the state opposed this move as an order was granted by the North West Judge President for trial to resume amid the pending review application.
“The matter last appeared on 29 November 2022, and it was postponed for trial as per the Judge President’s order.
“Both the state and the accused’s legal representatives have completed their arguments and the sitting judge is expected to make a judgement on 10 March 2023 on the postponement, or the court exercises its inherent jurisdiction to strike the matter off the roll.”
One of the accused is currently serving a life sentence for a murder related to the wage strike in Marikana in 2012.
The report of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry established that the Marikana workers’ action was in contravention of strike law, and hence that their action was unprotected; in the authors’ view, it generally fell short of the description of crime.
On 16 August 2012, the South African Police Service (SAPS) allegedly opened fire on a crowd of striking mineworkers at Marikana, in the North West Province.
34 mineworkers were killed, and left 78 seriously injured. Following the open fire assault – 250 of the miners were arrested.
CENTRAL NEWS
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