DJ’s drug trial postponed to February

STATE prosecutors pulled the handbrake on the dagga and tik trial of East London alleged dealer Paul Love yesterday.

However, magistrate Nomaxabiso Mvumbi made it clear that the postponement to February 8 was not a “blanket” ruling “for all [dagga] cases”.

Defence attorneys would have to apply to the high court for a postponement in each case, she said.

Nonetheless, Love, a club DJ who faces possible jail time if found guilty of dealing in tik, walked out of court on R3 000 bail yesterday. He has yet to plead. In a twist, state prosecutor Kurt Swartz stood up at the start of the second day of argument over longterm postponement and asked for the matter to be postponed to February 8.

Swartz told Mvumbi he had been instructed by both the SAPS and his own superiors in the provincial Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to postpone the argument about a longer-term postponement.

Love’s defence attorney, Andre Schoombee, stood up and described the prosecutor’s submission as “weird”.

On Wednesday, which was day one of the matter, Schoombee linked Love’s three counts of dealing in 29.74g of dagga to three other highprofile cases in Pretoria, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

In the Cape Town and Pretoria matters, attorneys are representing clients who are calling for dagga to be legalised.

Schoombee is arguing that the laws around possession and dealing in cannabis are in flux and that the state should hold off on prosecuting Love until a higher court has made a precedent-setting ruling.

All eyes will be on government departments’ responses on Tuesday in the Cape trial of Rasta attorney Garreth Prince and Dagga Party of SA leader Jeremy Acton.

In Pretoria, the “trial of the plant” brought against dagga activist couple Julian Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke will be heard from July to August.

Rulings in both matters will affect the dagga trial in Humansdorp of Bryan Jones, which has been postponed by the Eastern Cape high court, and possibly Love’s case, which has now been stalled by prosecutors.

Judge Dennis Davis, in Cape Town, has already commented on the Prince and Acton case, saying the issue could land up in the Constitutional Court.

Mvumbi told Schoombee that despite the new development, she had read up on the PE and Humansdorp case overnight, and that he had better start preparing his high court papers.

She made it clear that “this will be a high court and not a DPP decision” but also flicked the whip against the DPP, saying it should give the prosecution “guidelines” on how to proceed.

Schoombee earlier stated: “I object that there is no judgment [on the postponement], but if the court says wait [for the DPP] then I am in the court’s hands.” —