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News and Information
Treason trial court wants Legal Aid boss to explain
| October 25, 2004 |
WERNER MENGES
THE High Court at Grootfontein remains in the dark over the appointment of a replacement for the defence counsel who ended his representation of nine treason suspects last week.
The court is set to reconvene tomorrow, after Judge Elton Hoff refused on Friday to adhere to a request from the Director of Legal Aid for the treason trial to be postponed until December 1.
Defence lawyer Henry Chanda, who withdrew as counsel for nine of his 10 clients on Tuesday last week, told Judge Hoff on Friday that the Director of Legal Aid had instructed him to apply for a postponement until the start of December.
That is in order to give the Director time to engage a new defence counsel for the nine.
Chanda told the Judge that the Director had proposed the date of December 1 "out of extreme caution", but added that he was not in a position to explain to the court for what precise reasons the Director was asking to be given time until then.
The Director was not present at court on Friday.
He had been at Grootfontein on Thursday for a meeting with the team of nine defence lawyers, but again departed afterwards.
He, or a staff member from his office, would now have to be at the court tomorrow to inform Judge Hoff about the reasons why he was seeking such a long postponement, and what difficulties he may be facing in appointing a new defence counsel to take over from Chanda, the Judge has directed.
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Source: Namibian.com.na |
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