Johannesburg - Since the arrest of the Thulsie twins, their mother Wasiela has never missed their court appearances and on each occasion she broke down in tears when she saw them.
On Monday, however, she cried bitterly when the magistrate thwarted their bid to be freed following their claim that they had been unlawfully arrested.
As soon as Magistrate Pieter du Plessis dismissed the twins’ application by stating that Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee had been “arrested lawfully, were in lawful custody and were appearing lawfully before the court”, Wasiela cried so much that a relative sitting next to her had a difficult time comforting her.
With her hands covering her face, she bent over and cried bitterly, her body shaking as she wept.
But advocate Annelene van den Heever, appearing for the twins, was not prepared to take this lying down. As soon as the magistrate ruled that the arrest of the twins had in fact been executed lawfully, Van den Heever immediately stood up and said they would approach the high court.
Van den Heever said she believed that her clients were arrested unlawfully and that the high court would make a different ruling.
Du Plessis said Van den Heever could approach the high court only after the twins’ bail application had been heard.
That resulted in both parties arguing about the next step to be taken. In the end, the magistrate set the twins’ bail application for Friday. The defence, on the other hand, will approach the high court within 48 hours.
The twins were arrested last month on suspicion of plotting to detonate bombs at the US Mission in South Africa and Jewish establishments in the country.
During their previous bail application they claimed they had been wrongly arrested and should be granted bail. But the magistrate decided to deal with the claim of unlawful arrest separately from the bail application, ruling it was unfounded.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s Phindi Louw said they were happy with this, as they had always maintained that the twins were lawfully detained.
She said the magistrate was convinced by the State's evidence of what was found during execution of the warrants of arrests.