Rivonia Trial - Arrests

Arrests

Arrested were:

• Walter Sisulu
• Govan Mbeki
• Raymond Mhlaba
• Andrew Mlangeni
• Elias Motsoaledi, trade union and ANC member
• Ahmed Kathrada
• Billy Nair
• Denis Goldberg, a Cape Town engineer and leader of the Congress of Democrats.
• Lionel "Rusty" Bernstein, architect and member of the South African Communist Party
• Bob Hepple
• Arthur Goldreich
• Harold Wolpe, prominent attorney and activist
• James "Jimmy" Kantor, brother-in-law of Harold Wolpe

and others.

Goldberg, Bernstein, Hepple, Wolpe, Kantor and Goldreich were white Jews, Kathrada and Nair were Indian, and Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi and Mhlaba were Xhosa, while Sisulu had a Xhosa mother and a white father.

The trial was essentially a mechanism through which the apartheid government could hurt or mute the ANC and allied organizations. Its leaders, including Nelson Mandela, who was already in Johannesburg's Fort prison serving a five-year sentence for inciting workers to strike and leaving the country illegally, were prosecuted, found guilty, and imprisoned. The apartheid regime's attack on the ANC's leadership and organizers continued with a trial known as Little Rivonia, in which other ANC members were prosecuted for sabotage. Amongst the defendants in this trial was the chief of MK, Wilton Mkwayi who was sentenced to life imprisonment alongside Mandela and the other ANC leaders on Robben Island.

The government took advantage of 90 days without trial, and the defendants were held incommunicado. Meanwhile, Goldreich and Wolpe bribed a guard and escaped from jail on 11 August. Their escape infuriated the prosecutors and police who considered Goldreich to be "the arch-conspirator."

Lawyers were unable to see the accused until two days before indictment on 9 October. Leading the defence team was Bram Fischer, the distinguished Afrikaner lawyer, assisted by Joel Joffe, Arthur Chaskalson, George Bizos, Vernon Berrangé and Harold Hanson. A separate team including Hanson and Harry Schwarz defended Kantor. At the end of October, Hepple was able to leave the dock because under pressure he decided to testify for the prosecution but never did; he managed to escape and flee the country.

The presiding judge was Dr. Quartus de Wet, judge-president of the Transvaal.

The chief prosecutor was Dr. Percy Yutar, deputy attorney-general of the Transvaal.

The trial began on 26 November 1963. After dismissal of the first indictment as inadequate, the trial finally got under way on 3 December with an expanded indictment. Each of the ten accused pleaded not guilty. The trial ended on 12 June 1964.