JOHANNESBURG, April 25 (ANA) – A charge of fraud was added in the case against twins Brandon-Lee and Tony-Lee Thulsie, in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
The twins were arrested in July last year on suspicion that they had been plotting terrorist attacks against a US mission in Johannesburg as well as Jewish cultural sites.
They are facing charges of conspiracy and incitement to commit the crime of terrorism and conspiring and attempting to commit acts associated with terrorist activities.
State prosecuter Chris MacAdam told the court on Tuesday that he had an indictment which contained 12 charges including an additional charge from Ficksburg in the Free State which needed the Gauteng Directorate of Public Prosecutions(DPP) to communicate with the DPP from the Free State to decide whether the charges against the twins would be separated or combined.
“We are busy with the process where we have to consult. We need to deal with the centralisation of the charges. The letters are being drafted and sent out,” MacAdam said.
MacAdam told Magistrate Pieter Du Plessis that once a transfer to the high court was requested a date would be scheduled for a pre-trial hearing.
The 13 page indictment stated that the twins were attempting to join ISIL and that terrorist activities would have been perpetrated by using firearms, explosives and possibly poisons and would have been directed at various embassies of countries including the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States embassy based in Pretoria.
South African Jewish cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, Roy Topol, a Jewish South African investment manager as well as King David High School Linksfield were also listed in the indictment as targets of the twins.
It’s alleged that in August 2015 one of the twins, Tony-Lee, participated in a series of Telegram chats with Abu Fidaa (an ISIL/ISIS network) and others, where he was instructed to attack the best targets involving “US/Brit/French interest in South Africa” as well as to kill Zapiro who drew the Messenger of Allah cartoon.
The family members of the twins were present in court in support of them and broke down when they heard that the matter had been postponed yet again.
The twelfth charge, which is for fraud, is in connection with the twins presenting Lesotho passports with the names Christian Adams Leroy and Germain Adams Troy to the Department of Home Affairs officials manning the border post between South Africa and Lesotho.
The case was postponed to May 15 when a date will be finalised for the twins to appear in the high court.
-African News Agency (ANA)
