Treason trial of 22 extremists starts

(19 May 2003)

Pretoria - May 19, 2003
1. Exterior Palace of Justice
2. Police on steps
3. Two police talking
4. Crowd waiting on pavement
5. Man reading newspaper with headlines about the case
6. Arrival of accused in armoured vehicles
7. Back of armoured vehicle with people in entrance to court
8. Interior court
9. Family members and friends of the accused in court
10. Accused come in and sit down
11. Various of accused with numbered papers marking their places
12. Police at court door
13. Police on horses outside
14. Crowd with police in foreground
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Vox pop
"What they deserve now is that they must get the hardest sentence that they must even teach other people that no one ever is supposed to attempt to overthrow the government."
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Vox pop
"This is a democratic country, we elected this government and peoples who are trying to overthrow the government, they are fighting us the peoples, because we don't want to go back to that era, no."

File - Midway Railway Station, Near Soweto - October 30, 2002
17. Police on railway tracks after bomb blast in outskirts of Soweto
18. Various close ups damaged track

File - Dlamini, Soweto - October 30, 2002
19. Exterior mosque hit in another blast on the same day
20. Minaret on mosque
21. Digger outside mosque after it was damaged in blast

Pretoria - May 19, 2003
22. Two of accused being led out of court, by van
23. Police and accused
24. Close up feet
25. Accused behind grill
26. Crowd outside court
27. Van leaving court, crowd cheering
28. Various crowd dancing outside court

STORYLINE:

A group of 22 white men appeared in a South African court on Monday,amid tight security, in connection with a plot to kill Nelson Mandela and overthrow the government.

The men face 43 charges including high treason, murder, attempted murder, terrorism and the illegal possession of arms and ammunition.

Roads leading to the courthouse were closed and a police aircraft flew overhead as most of the accused were escorted to court in armoured vehicles.

Dozens of the accuseds' family members gathered early to claim seats in the public gallery of the court.

Security means only 120 members of the public are allowed into the court.

Police guarded crowds of people who had gathered outside the court ahead of the arrival of the accused.

The first treason trial in the post-apartheid South Africa is being held in the recently restored Palace of Justice where Mandela and others were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

Alleged members of the extreme right-wing group called "Boeremag" (Farmers Force), the 22 are charged for the murder of Claudia Mokone who was killed in a bomb blast in Soweto in October 2002.

The blast was one of a series of blasts in Soweto on the same day.

The accused are also charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to murder for an alleged plan to blow up a car transporting former South African president Mandela to a public event.

Mandela foiled the alleged plot by choosing helicopter transport over a motor vehicle.

It is alleged that the 22 plotted to kill all blacks or drive them from the country and set up an Afrikaner state.

As the vehicles carrying the accused left the courthouse, groups of black protesters danced and shouted slogans like "Kill the farmer, kill the Boer." They dispersed after being warned by police.

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