Release and re-arrest deadlocks treason trial

A Namibian High Court will decide on Thursday whether the state can challenge the release of 13 men accused of treason for their alleged role in secessionist violence. The 13 were part of a group of 120 arrested for taking part in an attack by the Caprivi Liberation Army (CLA) on Katimo Mulilo, the largest town in the northeastern Caprivi region, which left 13 people dead in 1999. The 13, including John Samboma, the alleged commander of the CLA, were released last Monday following an order by Judge Elton Hoff at the High Court in Grootfontein, 500 km from the Namibian capital, Windhoek. Hoff ruled that his court did not have the jurisdiction to try them because the circumstances under which they had been held were "irregular". Hoff ruled on a special plea, lodged by the 13 in January, which questioned the Namibian court's jurisdiction, arguing that they had been abducted unlawfully from Zambia and Botswana by the Namibian security forces and had only been brought to court six months after their arrest. Following the ruling and their release on Monday last week, the 13 were re-arrested on Tuesday on charges unrelated to the treason trial. The grounds for their arrest were unclear. John Walters, special counsel with the prosecution team, told IRIN that they were again released on Wednesday because there was insufficient evidence to charge them. However, they were again arrested on the same day and charged with treason. Walters explained that the court had not acquitted the 13 of the treason charges, so they could be re-charged. Defence counsel Patrick Kauta moved an application in the same High Court on Monday this week, pointing out that the state was in contempt because the 13 had not been released as ordered by the court last week. The state argued that the 13 had been released and produced their release vouchers as evidence. On Tuesday the court ruled in the state's favour, and the 13 remain in custody. Kauta told IRIN that the defence team was going to challenge the re-arrest of the 13 on the treason charges. Human rights activists have slammed the repeated delays and postponements in the main treason trial - the remaining 107 accused are still in jail and twelve people have died in custody, prompting calls for independent autopsies to establish the cause of death. Caprivi - a colonial anachronism - is a strip of land running across northeastern Namibia, sharing borders with Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Historically the region was under the sway of the Lozi Barotseland kingdom in Zambia, and the cultural ties remain. During South African colonial administration, Caprivi was governed directly from Pretoria rather than Windhoek, reinforcing for some the sense of its separate identity. Caprivi secessionists are loyal to Mishak Muyongo, a member of the Mafwe royal family that trace their lineage to pre-colonial Barotseland, was a vice-president of the ruling SWAPO party until he was expelled over the issue of Caprivi self-determination. He then became a leading light in the pre-independence ruling Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, and president of the party in opposition until he was removed in 1998 following reports of his sponsorship of the CLA. He wielded significant political power in eastern Caprivi, in part through an alliance with a former Mafwe chief, Boniface Mamili. Both men fled to Botswana in 1998 after the discovery of a CLA training camp in their Linyanti home region. Muyongo was granted assylum by Denmark in 1998, and three other CLA leaders were settled in Finland.