Validity of terror twins’ arrest at issue
The case against Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee Thulsie has been postponed to allow the State to prepare affidavits to prove that the twins had been lawfully arrested.
|||Johannesburg – The case of the alleged terrorist twins Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee Thulsie has been postponed in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court, to allow the State to prepare affidavits to prove that the twins had been lawfully arrested.
The Thulsie twins, who were arrested more than two weeks ago, are accused of plotting a terror attack in which they allegedly planned to detonate explosives at a US Mission in South Africa and at Jewish institutions in the country.
The court was due have held a bail application hearing already, but this has been put off after defence counsel, Advocate Annelene Van den Heever argued that the accused pair had been unlawfully arrested.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Pieter Du Plessis said an application had to be made by the Thulsie twins stating why they felt they had been unlawfully arrested.
Van den Heever argued that the affidavits that were initially handed forward could be used for the unlawful arrest application, but this was denied by Du Plessis who requested a new set of affidavits.
Court was then stood down in order for the new affidavits to be prepared.
When court resumed on Thursday, Van Den Heever submitted a new set of affidavits supporting their argument that the Thulsie twins had been unlawfully arrested, including that no arrest warrants had been presented to them when members of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) swooped on terror suspects in Johannesburg earlier this month.
Du Plessis said the state had the obligation to respond to the application and needed to prove that the twins had been lawfully arrested, failing which, he would be compelled to release them.
State prosecutor Chris MacAdam requested that the State be given time to prepare their responding affidavits.
The case was adjourned to Friday.
African News Agency