SOUTH AFRICA: Twenty-two white extremists went on trial in Pretoria under heavy security yesterday on charges of plotting to overthrow the South African government and assassinate former South African president Mr Nelson Mandela.
The trial, adjourned until next Monday, is expected to last around three years, with some 300 witnesses testifying.
They include a turncoat plotter who plea-bargained his way last week to a 12-year sentence, four years of which are suspended, in return for his evidence.
The accused, who belong to a right-wing group called Boeremag (Afrikaans for "Boer Forces"), face charges including high treason, murder, terrorism and illegal possession of arms and ammunition.
They face maximum sentences of life imprisonment if convicted - South Africa abolished the death penalty in 1995, a year after the installation of the country's first majority government.
The accused are linked to a series of explosions in Johannesburg's Soweto township which left one dead, and a plot, foiled by police, to bomb Mr Mandela's motorcade as he travelled to a school in the north late last year.
The trial, the first involving treason since the abolition of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, started in the newly restored Palace of Justice in the centre of the capital.
The trial is being held in the same courtroom where Mr Mandela, the late Walter Sisulu and other anti-apartheid activists were sentenced to life in jail for treason against the then white-ruled state on June 12th, 1964.
Mr Mandela spent 27 years in prison before being released by the Frederik de Klerk government in February 1990.
The accused, aged between 22 and 54, were arrested from October last year.
Two hours into the first day of the trial, the judge adjourned it until next Monday to give the defence lawyers an opportunity to sort out a problem with fees.