Pretoria - The High Court in Pretoria and the Garsfontein home of veteran prosecutor Gerrie Nel had to be evacuated on Wednesday morning following bomb threats.
The police bomb squad searched both premises, but nothing was found.
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini confirmed they received complaints of two bomb scares - one at court and the other at Nel’s home.
“We did not find any explosives during our searches at both locations, but are investigating the claims made about the bomb threats,” Dlamini said.
It is uncertain whether Nel and his family were home at the time of the bomb scare. By late on Wednesday, Nel had not responded to enquiries by the Pretoria News on what had transpired at his home, but spokesman for the national director of public prosecutions, Velekhaya Ngobozi, confirmed the bomb scare at Nel’s home. He couldn’t provide any more details.
“The police are investigating the matter,” he told the Pretoria News.
Nel, who prosecuted Oscar Pistorius and former police chief Jackie Selebi, was arrested in 2008 connection with his role in prosecuting Selebi. Charges against him were later dropped.
He was also the head of the Scorpions in Gauteng, but went back to the NDPP when the unit was abolished.
Confirming the scare at the high court, spokesman for the office of the chief justice, Nathi Mncube, on Wednesday said the police received information about a bomb planted at court, which was immediately evacuated.
“The police reported to (Judge President Dunstan Mlambo) that nothing was found,” Mncube said.
Work at court was disrupted for about two hours, as all staff, including judges and advocates, were told to evacuate the building shortly before 10.30am.
They were allowed back in after SAPS sniffer dogs combed the eight-storey building.
The few prisoners who were in the holding cells were taken back to prison.
The Palace of Justice on Church Square was also evacuated and searched.
Speculation was rife outside court that an e-mail was sent during the night informing an official that a bomb had been planted. This could not be confirmed, however.
Security personnel rushed to each office in the morning to tell staff to evacuate and trials were disrupted as judges had to dismiss court.
Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba was in the middle of calling the civil roll and allocating cases for the day, when proceedings were interrupted. He told the lawyers and advocates to return at 1pm, when he proceeded with calling the roll.
Several advocates felt inconvenienced by the disruption and said their clients were the ones who were suffering. They understood that the threat couldn’t be taken lightly.
Prominent senior counsel, Nic Maritz and his team, were busy with an intricate three-day financial trial when they had to stop proceedings.
“It is obvious that the client is suffering, as he has to pay for an extra day of proceedings,” he said.
Various civil trials due to start on Wednesday had to be delayed.
One advocate calculated that, if 50 trials were due to go ahead on Wednesday, with a conservative legal fee of R40 000 a day, the loss incurred for the delay amounted to around R2 million.
Pretoria News