Mr. Carter addressed on the 24th and 25th, and Mr. Schreiner, beginning on the 25th, concluded on the 2nd March.
Judgment was delivered on the 3rd, that is, on the seventy-third day's sitting. The prisoner was found guilty of high treason: (a) by harbouring and concealing Bambata's wife and children for over fifteen months; (b) by harbouring and assisting the ringleaders Bambata and Mangati during the actual progress of the Rebellion; and (c) by harbouring and concealing 125 named and other rebels at various times between May, 1906 (when the Rebellion was at its height), and the date of his arrest.
With regard to the most serious count of which he was found not guilty, one of the judges felt it necessary to say: "The matter has given me a great deal of concern, and, up to this very morning, the thought has occurred to me again and again whether it would not be my duty to stand out from the majority of the Court in the conclusion to which they have arrived on this point." There "certainly is evidence which makes one hesitate very much, as far as I am concerned, in giving the prisoner a clean bill."
| HON. W.P. SCHREINER, K.C., M.LA. | MR. E. RENAUD, | DINUZULU. | MR. R.C. SAMUELSON, | MISS H.E. COLENSO. |
| Senior Counsel for the Defence. | Advocate. | Attorney. |
The Attorney-General had already withdrawn two counts whilst some of the others unavoidably overlapped, consequently it was felt unnecessary to consider them. In respect of one, the Judge President said as "two of the alleged conspirators are to be tried before this court ... I think it better that we should give no finding." Dinuzulu, after admitting a previous conviction for high treason in April, 1889, (his age then being between twenty-one and twenty-two) was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in respect of (b) and (c) "to date from the 9th day of December, 1907" (i.e. the date of his surrender), and a fine of £100 or twelve months' imprisonment in respect of (a), the "twelve months to be cumulative, not concurrent."
Thus ended a State trial which will long be remembered in South Africa. Remarkable for its intricacy and duration, it was even more so for the deep and sustained interest aroused by its various issues among all sections of the community, in Natal and Zululand, throughout South Africa, and in England and elsewhere. Although practically the whole of the evidence for the Crown and the Defence was laid by the press before the public, attention tended to become more and more focussed on the judgment of the court, a judgment from which there was no appeal. And it was generally anticipated and hoped that such judgment would supply a complete and decisive answer to the question as to the exact extent to which Dinuzulu was implicated in the Rebellion of 1906. It is, however, impossible to deny that the judgment, notwithstanding the honest, persevering and exhaustive efforts of the Bench and the Bar, failed to carry conviction home to many who, having followed the proceedings, were at least familiar with the principal features. Convicted on but three counts (and these not including the most important) out of twenty-three, Dinuzulu was commonly believed to have escaped far more lightly than he deserved, or than the evidence appeared to permit. But, owing to the extreme length and complexity of the case, people felt they had to be content with the result, as there was neither opportunity nor inclination to examine the masses of evidence for themselves in detail.
The result of the conviction, as anticipated by the President when passing sentence, was that Dinuzulu not only forfeited the position of Government Induna, but was formally deposed from his chieftainship.