‘Terror twins’ return to court

DELAY: DEFENCE ASKS FOR EVIDENCE DOCUMENTS

Indictment says Thulsies planned to attack embassies, kill SA cartoonist.

The case of terror-accused twins Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee Thulsie was again postponed yesterday in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court as the defence did not have access to relevant documents.

However, defence counsel advocate Annelene van den Heever asked the court not to allow a lengthy postponement. “Two weeks is way too long. We need to move this matter to the high court,” she said.

Van den Heever agreed to the centralisation of the cases against the twins, which would allow a fraud charge laid in the Free State to be heard with the terror-related charges in the high court.

At the previous appearance of the twins, state prosecutor Chris MacAdam told the pair they faced 12 charges, which included an additional charge of fraud in the Free State. The Gauteng Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) needed to communicate with its Free State counterparts about whether the charges would be combined or heard separately in different jurisdictions.

The twins have been in prison since their arrests in July 2016. They have been charged with conspiracy and incitement to commit terrorism and conspiring and attempting to commit acts associated with terrorist activities.

State advocate Adele Barnard told the court yesterday the matter had been set down for the finalisation of the centralisation documents and that they had met the DPP and correspondence had been forwarded to the defence.

But the defence indicated they could not give consent as they had not yet received the state’s evidence documents.

Barnard told the court they had been in communication with the defence since April in attempts to finalise the matter.

There had been “sensitive digital constraints” for the digital format as requested by the defence. A forensic expert who could send the documents was in Limpopo and could only assist when she returned.

The 13-page indictment stated that the twins were attempting to join the group known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS) and that the terrorist activities would have been perpetrated by using firearms, explosives and possibly poison and would have been directed at the Pretoria embassies of countries, including the United Kingdom, Russia and the US.

South African Jewish cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro was also listed in the indictment as a target of the twins.

It is alleged that in August 2015, one of the twins, Tony-Lee, participated in a series of Telegram chats with Abu Fidaa (an IS network) and others in which he was instructed to attack the best targets involving “US/Brit/French interests in South Africa”, as well as to kill Zapiro, who once drew a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

“It is a complete misnomer by the state that the investigations were completed and the defence was entitled to the documents,” said Van den Heever.

She said she had spoken to the state and they were afraid of contamination of the digital documents and that there was a request for the bulk of the pages of the documents to be given to the defence in digital form and the rest in hard copy.

“They have had more than enough time to provide the documents to the defence. To make a copy takes a few hours. The state could have done this,” Van den Heever said.

Barnard said the forensic expert would only be able to have the digital dockets ready on June 1 and that there was no one else who could assist.

The matter was adjourned to May 29. – ANA