The Treason Trial was a trial in Johannesburg in which 156 people, including Nelson Mandela, were arrested in a raid and accused of treason in South Africa in 1956.

The main trial lasted until 1961, when all of the defendants were found not guilty. During the trials, Oliver Tambo left the country and was exiled. Whilst in other European and African countries, he started an organisation which helped bring publicity to the African National Congress's cause in South Africa. Some of the defendants were later convicted in the Rivonia Trial in 1964.

Chief Luthuli has said of the Treason Trial:<blockquote>The treason trial must occupy a special place in South African history. That grim pre-dawn raid, deliberately calculated to strike terror into hesitant minds and impress upon the entire nation the determination of the governing clique to stifle all opposition, made one hundred and fifty-six of us, belonging to all the races of our land, into a group of accused facing one of the most serious charges in any legal system.</blockquote>

Background

On 5 December 1956, the South African Police's Security Branch raided and arrested 140 people from around the country on the charge of treason as they enforced the Suppression of Communism Act. Those not based in Johannesburg were flown there in military aircraft and held in custody until a hearing on 19 December 1956. Magistrate Frederick Wessels was the presiding judge with J.C. van Niekerk as the state's public prosecutor.

Resuming on 20 December 1956, the hearing was interrupted again when the defence objected to their clients being behind a wire fence. After an adjournment, it was agreed by the two sides to reduce it to a barrier tall. With no charges yet presented to the individual detainees, bail was granted and the trial was concluded until 9 January 1957. The defence would argue that the Freedom Charter was not treasonous, that it did not call for violence, and it argued for peace and racial harmony for the country. With the hearing to last a few more months, the magistrate had more 6,200 pages of testimony and 10,000 exhibits to examine and decide whether to pass the sentences himself or let the Attorney General decide whether to proceed to a trial. Albert Luthuli and 44 black, six white, four Indian, and six coloured defendants were released.

The hearing concluded on 30 January 1958 with Magistrate F.C. Wessels finding that there was sufficient evidence for the defendants to be tried on charges of high treason. The defendants were asked to plead, with all pleading not guilty they were released on bail. Their defence lawyers asked for a jury trial, the alternative being a trial by two or three judges, a request rejected by the state in treason trials. The trial saw 57 blacks, 16 whites, 16 Indians, and two coloureds charged with attempting to overthrow the South African government between 1952 and 1956 with the intention to replace it with a communist system.

After the trial collapsed in October, it was decided in November 1958 to resume the trial on 19 January 1959 with a decision to drop 60 people from the indictment.

On 22 November 1958, 30 of the 91 were re-indicted with the charge now been narrowed down to a conspiracy to endanger and overthrow the state based on the 1955 Congress of the People gathering and the adoption of the Freedom Charter. The remaining 61 were to be indicted in April 1959. The case was postponed on the first day until after lunch as the bus carrying the defendants had broken down.

With the resumption of the trial on 20 April 1959 of the other 61 defendants, it was ended when Judge Rumpff declared that the Crown's case could not accuse the defendants of conspiracy without saying how they entered into the conspiracy and that they would need to know in order to defend their case.

On 29 March 1961, down to 28 defendants, the trial's verdict was released and they were all found not guilty of treason and discharged. Judge Rumpff concluded that the prosecution could not show that the African National Congress (ANC) had become a communist organisation and therefore no treason could be proven nor that any act of violence was to be used to overthrow the state.

  • Rev. James Calata
  • Yusuf Dadoo, leader of the South African Indian Congress
  • Ruth First, SACP, journalist and wife of Joe Slovo
  • Lionel Forman, lawyer and journalist (indictment withdrawn), died in 1959.
  • Archie Gumede, ANC, later leader of the United Democratic Front.
  • Bertha Gxowa (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Alfred Hutchinson (a coloured journalist who fled South Africa before the conclusion of the trial)
  • Helen Joseph, white trade unionist and women's leader (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Ahmed Kathrada, accused number three, secretary-general of the Transvaal Indian Youth Congress (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Fish Keitseng
  • Moses Kotane, ANC delegate to the Asian-African Conference in Bandung
  • Alex La Guma, journalist and writer
  • Arthur Letele, treasurer-general of ANC and medical doctor
  • Leon Levy (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Stanley Lollan, accused number four, (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Chief Luthuli, known as Chief Luthuli, then-president of the ANC, later released for lack of evidence.
  • Nelson Mandela, ANC (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Z. K. Mathews, academic
  • Vuyisile Mini, Trade Union leader and musician
  • Wilton Mkwayi, went into hiding during the 1960 State of Emergency while the other defendants were detained, later arrested and tried during the Rivonia Trial.
  • Ida Fiyo Mntwana, first national president of the Federation of South African Women, died March 1960 before verdict (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Joe Modise (ANCYL Leader, then a working class township youth working as a bus driver)
  • Rev. Douglas Thompson
  • Patrick Molaoa, ANC youth league
  • Narainsamy Thumbi "NT" Naicker, Former Secretary-General of the Natal Indian Congress (founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1894), Former Secretary-General of the South African Indian Congress and one of the original drafters of the Freedom Charter.
  • Elias Moretsele, ANC leader, died a few weeks before the trial ended (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Lionel Morrison, youngest defendant at 21 years of age. Stowed away to the UK and claimed asylum, becoming a UK citizen, died in 2016.
  • Motsamai Mpho
  • Monty Naicker, the Gandhian leader of the Natal Indian Congress
  • Marimuthu Pragalathan Naicker, trade union leader, journalist, vice president of the Natal Indian Congress
  • Billy Nair, trade unionist in Natal
  • Lillian Ngoyi (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Duma Nokwe (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Peter Nthite, ANC Youth League
  • George Peake
  • Nimrod Sejake
  • Archie Sibeko, also known as Zola Zembe, later released and sent into permanent exile
  • Reggie September
  • Gert Sibande
  • Debi Singh, SAIC
  • Walter Sisulu, ANC (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Joe Slovo, SACP lawyer (one of the final 30 defendants)
  • Oliver Tambo, released for lack of evidence, goes into exile to co-ordinate the ANC from abroad.
  • Ben Turok, academic, was a member of the South African Parliament, retired c 2014
  • M.B. Yengwa, Natal ANC

Lawyers for the defense

The lawyers for the defense included:

  • Israel Maisels, known as Issy Maisels, leader of the defence team, with:
  • Vernon Berrangé
  • Bram Fischer
  • Maurice Franks
  • Harold Hanson
  • Ruth Hayman
  • Sydney Kentridge
  • Shulamith Muller
  • G. Nicholas
  • Norman Rosenberg
  • Rex Welsh

Furthermore,

  • Nelson Mandela and Duma Nokwe conducted the defence during the state of the emergency after the Sharpeville Massacre, when the trialists instructed their defence lawyers to temporarily withdraw from the case.
  • Joe Slovo conducted his own defence.

Other notable figures involved in the treason trial

Prosecutors included:

  • J.C. Van Niekerk, chief prosecutor
  • Oswald Pirow (from January 1958 onwards)
  • Jacob de Vos, who replaced Pirow after his death in 1959

Judges included:

  • Justice F.L. Rumpff, president, who was also a judge at the 1952 Defiance Trial
  • Justice Kennedy
  • Justice Joseph Ludorf, who withdrew when the defence argued he had a conflict of interest
  • Justice Simon Becker

Witnesses included:

  • Professor Andrew Howson Murray, Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, brought in by the prosecution as an expert on communism.

Defence and Aid Fund

After the British priest, Canon John Collins learnt about the trial, and the calls for the death penalty, he set up the Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa to pay all legal expenses and look after the families of those on trial. This was one of the first examples of foreign intervention against apartheid in South Africa and proved very successful with over £75,000 being raised towards defending those accused. Harry Oppenheimer allegedly contributed £40,000 to the fund.

In 1957, the campaigner Mary Benson joined the Defence Fund as its secretary.

Significance of the trial

In many ways, the trial and prolonged periods in detention strengthened and solidified the relationships between members of the multi-racial Congress Alliance. Rusty Bernstein wrote:<blockquote>Inter-racial trust and co-operation is a difficult plant to cultivate in the poisoned soil outside. It is somewhat easier in here where ... the leaders of all ethnic factions of the movement are together and explore each other's doubts and reservations, and speak about them without constraint. Coexistence in the Drill Hall deepens and recreates their relationships.</blockquote>The trial and resulting periods of detention also allowed ANC leaders to consult about the direction of their struggle and the possibility of armed struggle. Ironically, the court found that the ANC was nonviolent just as the ANC was starting to question the effectiveness of this strategy.

In court, the 156 defendants sat in alphabetical order, visibly displaying the multiracial nature of the anti-apartheid movement. While the defendants sat side by side in court, they were strictly segregated in jail. When the trialists took over their own defence during the State of Emergency, they eventually convinced prison authorities to let them meet to plan their defence and white female defendants, white male defendants and black women defendants were brought to the African men's prison. Yet the prison authorities still sought to physically separate these defendants by race and gender in their meeting space. Mandela describes the practical dilemma the proponents of apartheid faced:<blockquote>The authorities erected an iron grille to separate Helen and Leon [Levy] (as whites) from us and a second partition to separate them from Lilian and Bertha [Mashaba Gxowa] (as African women) ... Even a master architect would have had trouble designing such a structure.</blockquote>

Trial timeline

  • December 1956: 156 anti-apartheid leaders arrested
  • December 1956 – January 1958: Preparatory examination in a magistrate's court to determine if there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial.
  • November 1957: Prosecution rewords the indictment and proceeded a separate trial against 30 accused. The remaining 61 accused were to be tried separately before the case against them was dismissed in mid 1959.
  • August 1959: Trial against 30 defendants proceeds in the Supreme Court.
  • 5 March 1960: Chief Luthuli's testimony begins.
  • 8 April 1960: ANC is declared banned in the wake of the State of Emergency declared after the Sharpeville massacre. Defendants retained in custody for five months and trial resumes without lawyers for several months.
  • May 1960: Helen Joseph and 21 left-wing white women detained during the State of Emergence embark on an eight-day hunger strike. The children of detainees protest outside Johannesburg City Hall.
  • 3 August 1960: Mandela's testimony begins.
  • 7 October 1960: Defense closes.
  • 23 March 1961: Trial adjourned for a week.
  • 29 March 1961: Accused are found not guilty.

See also

  • Little Rivonia Trial
  • Upington 26

Notes

References

  • ANC Treason Trial resources
  • Treason Trial on the Google Cultural Institute