NELSON MANDELA: ACCUSED #1
Pascale Lamche, UK/Ireland, South Africa, 2004 BBC Two: Monday 10 May 2004 11.20pm-12.25am
The untold story of the Rivonia arrests and trial - an 11 month period from July 1963 to June 1964 - which condemned Mandela and his co-defendants to life imprisonment on Robben Island.
PASCALE LAMCHE Director Interview
"The interviews are important pieces of history"
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Nick Fraser
Storyville Series Editor
The second in a pair of films by Pascale Lamche tells the largely forgotten story of the trial of Nelson Mandela.
The African National Congress, over which Mandela presided, had just launched its policy of armed struggle. But the conspirators were nabbed by the police as they plotted in a suburb of Johannesburg called Rivonia.
The details of the ANC's campaign - it included blowing up pylons and sabotaging bridges - are told in a burlesque style. But the trial was serious enough. The prosecutor, Percy Yutar, hoped to get the death sentence for the plotters.
Mandela's "I am prepared to die" speech in his defence has long been regarded as one of the great political statements of the 20th Century. A couple of years ago a recording of the speech was found, and it has been remastered by the BBC. You can only hear Mandela's voice faintly, but it is a very moving experience.
The film features exclusive interviews with Nelson Mandela and all the surviving co-accused along with fascinating testimony from their defence lawyers and from members of the Prosecution, Intelligence services and defence forces of apartheid South Africa.
