The Rev Allan Boesak, once a leading campaigner against apartheid, had his trial on charges of embezzling foreign donor funds postponed yesterday because he is too poor to defend himself.
He blamed the delay on legal aid authorities and said it would draw out the agony that started with allegations by a Danish aid agency before the new South Africa was born in 1994.
"I am deeply distressed that this issue cannot come to a conclusion," Dr Boesak (51) said after the High Court in Cape Town agreed to postpone the case for at least three months.
"Four years is a long time for any human being to live under such stress," he said. "I still have a contribution to make to our country and to the building of our nation."
Dr Boesak rejects the 32 charges of theft and fraud of more than R1 million (£147,348) of foreign aid that his Foundation for Peace and Justice charity was meant to give to the poor.
His accountant, Freddie Steen kamp, was jailed for six years after pleading guilty last year to similar charges and to falsifying the accounts which were shown to Scandinavian charities, the US pop star Paul Simon, Coca Cola and other donors.
Dr Boesak - a leading figure in the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s who later entered party politics and became Western Cape leader of President Mandela's ANC - said he wanted Steen kamp to appear as a witness at his trial.
A mystery donation of R1 million - roughly the sum Dr Boesak is charged with embezzling - has caused the delay.
South Africa's Legal Aid Board cut its funding when it found out about the gift, even though the donor stipulated it was to pay only for a top lawyer and not for other legal costs. The courts told the board to pay up, but the board appealed and that case is dragging on in Pretoria.
His counsel, Mr Chris Petty - who appeared without a fee - said no work has been done to prepare his defence since the lawyers were not being paid. The trial was put off until May 18th, but Judge John Foxcroft said that could only be a provisional date as it was not clear if the legal aid wrangle could be resolved in time.
The former president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, who once spearheaded international efforts to have apartheid declared a heresy, said he was contemplating returning to the ministry once the trial was over.
The affair does not seem to have dented foreign aid to South Africa. The Danish Prime Minister, Mr Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, pledged $52 million (£37.93 million) in new aid last week, saying the Boesak case had not soured relations.