Item Belt 39b - MP3 - Ismail Essop Makda XD

Description

There were only two state witnesses dealt with in court on this day. Proceedings opened with the continued examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar of Ismail Essop Makda, a clerk in the legal firm of James Kantor and Partners. Following on from this, was the examination of another minor witness whose evidence also related directly to the firm of James Kantor and Partners.

Witnesses Called

12th State Witness: Ismail Essop Makda – Clerk, James Kantor and Partners. (Recalled).
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar continued.
In order to provide clarity regarding the many documents and files presented and discussed the previous day, Dr Yutar provided the court with exhibits, each being a summary, in schedule form of all the exhibits associated with the accounts of A. Letele, V. Ezra, J. First, and J. Rosenberg. These are Exhibits E, F, G, H, and I, J respectively.

The first new exhibit presented by Dr Yutar on this day was Exhibit I – a summary in schedule form of the account of C. G. Williams (also known as the Defence and Aid account). On the 18th March, 1963, an amount of R10, 000 was paid from C. G. Williams and then into the James Kantor and Partners Trust Account with no further instructions on either the receipts or file aside from “Defence and Aid”. Just like the abovementioned instance on 8th March, 1962, on the same day this amount of R10, 000 was received, it was also withdrawn from the firm’s account in the form of five cheques. Each cheque was for R2, 000 and all had the reference “bail funds”. The first was made out to Ruron (Pty) Ltd., the second to Amateur Photography, and the final three were made out as cash. Once again, despite his signature appearing on a number of the cheques and receipts, Ismail Makda was unable to provide the court with any additional information regarding these transactions.

The next exhibit handed in by Dr Yutar was Exhibit J, which was a summary in schedule form of the account of Accused No.2, Walter Sisulu. The documents in Sisulu’s file related to an amount of R6, 000 that was collected in order to pay bail on behalf of Walter Sisulu on 8th March, 1963. The accounts of J. Rosenberg, J. First, W. Sisulu, and others, were shown to have been used in a great number of un-recorded money transfers channelled through the trust account of the firm James Kantor and Partners.

Unlike the previous files examined the file of Accused No.5, Ahmed Kathrada, did have instructions on its cover, and was annotated with notes on consultation dates. However, the account of Kathrada was not examined very much in comparison to the others.

The final exhibit submitted to the court by Dr Yutar was a document found by Warrant Officer Dirker in the car of Arthur Goldreich on the 11th of July, 1963 – Exhibit R.1. Dr Yutar read allowed a three-page extract from the document to the courtroom, which Ismail Makda subsequently identified as being written in the handwriting of Harold Wolpe. The document discussed of the High Command and U.W.S. (also known as Umkhonto We Sizwe) and the expected roles and practices of officers acting under its authority for the liberation of African people. When he claimed not to know what either the High Command or U.W.S was, Dr Yutar asks Ismail Makda no further questions.

Cross-examination by Mr. Coaker.
Mr Coaker began his cross-examination by leading the witness to admit that, when practicing with various partners between 1956 and 1959, James Kantor was involved in virtually none of the administrative or bookkeeping responsibilities of the firm. These were first the job of Mr Alec Edelsohn and later Mr Joel Joffe. Only when Kantor was practicing alone for a period did he assumed these responsibilities. It was during this time that he expressed his displeasure if he saw that a cash cheque had been drawn on the trust account of the firm. Thus, Mr Coaker made the point that when the books were the responsibility of James Kantor he did his best to keep them in order and to have a legally sufficient record of financial transactions.

Mr Coaker then goes on to discuss Harold Wolpe. Ismail Makda knew that prior to joining the firm Harold Wolpe “had not been tremendously successful at the bar” and that when Harold Wolpe joined the firm his sister was married to James Kantor. Upon joining the firm, Harold Wolpe was tasked with the responsibility of updating and maintaining the books of the firm. As such, it was not suspicious in anyway when in 1961 Harold Wolpe installed a mechanical system of bookkeeping at the firm as it fell under his responsibilities. Contrasting the impression of confusion and disorder given by Dr Yutar’s examination Ismail Makda stated under cross-examination that during this time, and under the new system introduced by Harold Wolpe, the books of the firm were kept in very good order.

Thereafter, Mr Coaker prompted the witness to provide the court with an understanding of Mr Kantor’s lifestyle. Ismail Makda painted a picture of James Kantor as being an extremely busy man, bringing in the majority of clients and principally responsible for handling the most difficult work. The witness went on to describe James Kantor as a tremendously hardworking attorney, who dealt with an astonishingly wide variety of clients and cases. Long working hours spent in courtrooms and shut away in his office at the firm indicated that he was under a heavy burden of work. James Kantor’s office was described as soundproof and farthest away from the reception room where clients were received. Kantor was seen seldom outside of his private office when at the firm, since he used an inter-communication system to communicate with colleagues.

Ismail Makda explained that the firm operated in such a way that James Kantor, Harold Wolpe and himself, each dealt with their own clients individually and exclusively. The witness never saw James Kantor taking an interest in, or interfering with, matters concerning Harold Wolpe or those of his clients. Mr Makda stated that it was common knowledge in the firm that James Kantor took no interest in what the other people were doing and nor did he know what they were doing.

Indeed, on occasions when Ismail Makda went into James Kantor’s office to request assistance with a matter he was told to “go look up the law for yourself, I’m too busy”. This recollection made Mr Coaker laugh audibly, but its importance lay in reiterating the defence’s claim that James Kantor remained unaware of any unlawful activities taking place within the firm James Kantor and Partners.

Ismail Makda continued that James Kantor was in courtrooms more often than he was in the office. His regular absence from the office often meant that cheques awaiting his signature often accumulated. Even though both Ismail Makda and Abram Kantor (James’ father who worked at the firm as an expert advisor) held signing rights, neither could sign off on a cheque without a second signature from James Kantor or Harold Wolpe. As both partners were often not in the office, James Kantor more so than Harold Wolpe, it was not uncommon for a pile of up to 200 unsigned cheques to accumulate on the desk of James Kantor before they were dealt with. Mr Coaker leads the witness to admit that, in light of this, it was not unreasonable or unusual for James Kantor to sign blank cheques or to sign cheques without taking note of their content.

Mr Makda confirmed that Mr J. Kantor trusted the members of his staff and left them in complete control of their operations at the firm. As such, the witness agreed, it was unlikely that James Kantor would have had any knowledge of monies transferred in and out of the trust account as that was the responsibility of the bookkeeper.

Contradicting the impression given by the prosecution during the examination-in-chief, Ismail agrees with Mr Coaker that it was the exception, rather than the rule, to find detailed notes on covers of client files. As such, Mr Coaker led the witness to confirm that there was nothing sinister about the files presented by the prosecution lacking notes on their covers. In fact, he claimed that there were hundreds of such files in the offices of the firm because, in recent years and particularly since the introduction of the mechanical bookkeeping system by Harold Wolpe, the practice of hand writing notes on client files had been abandoned mostly.

Under questioning Mr Makda states that when he requisitioned the cheques submitted as evidence by the prosecution he did so with no idea that he was participating in any unlawful activity. Mr Makda admits that he was in the office far more often than Mr J. Kantor and that he, unlike Mr J. Kantor who was usually closed in a soundproof office, was much more involved in the affairs of the office. Nevertheless, despite this extensive involvement in the affairs of the firm, Mr Makda did not have any suspicion of unlawful activities taking place.
Furthermore, in the period between the arrest of Mr Wolpe and Mr Kantor there was considerable time and opportunity for a person to simply find and remove all the files and cheques which had been submitted to the court as exhibits. As far as the witness knew, however, there had been no attempt to conceal or destroy anything from the firm’s offices and the police were given every assistance when they came to search the offices.

As far as Mr Makda was concerned, Mr Wolpe confined his political activities to assisting with the defence of persons who became involved in legal troubles on a legitimate basis as a lawyer. He never suspected that Harold Wolpe’s interest in politics would tend any way beyond the possible sympathy that he might have had for persons accused under certain laws. As such, the name ‘you bloody communist’ was used as a private joke between himself and Harold Wolpe and was not intended as an insult but a joke because Harold Wolpe was a listed communist. The only doubt Ismail Makda confessed to having was that by allowing Harold Wolpe to use his office for consultations with listed communists he (Makda) was facilitating the breaking of certain banning orders.

Further cross-examination by Mr Coaker was reserved to enable him to study circa.20 other files submitted to the court, which he had been unable to consult up until this point. Dr Yutar also requested the Judge to potentially re-call the witness for re-examination if need be.

13th State Witness: Ralph Sepel – Articled Clerk, A. B. Furman.
Examination-in-chief by Dr Yutar.
Ralph Sepel was an articled clerk and professional assistant to Attorney A. B. Furman. Ralph Sepel’s wife was the sister of Barbra Kantor, James Kantor’s wife. The examination-in-chief of Ralph Sepel concerned his role in the founding of the company, Navian (Pty) Ltd., and the associated transfer of Liliesleaf Farm to this new company. In 1961, Vivian Ezra instructed Ralph Sepel to draw up a lease with a new tenant, Accused No.6, Arthur Goldreich, detailing a rental sum of only R100 per month. At this time, Mr Sepel knew Arthur Goldreich socially but he was not aware that Arthur Goldreich and Vivian Ezra knew each other at all. The majority of his examination-in-chief on this day concerned the payment, or lack-there-of, of this rental income and the difficulties it raised for auditors at the firm.

Towards the end of the day’s discussion turns to the package delivered by the previous state witness, Ismail Makda, to Ralph Sepel at the request of Harold Wolpe. It is revealed that the package contained R5, 000 in cash receipted through the trust account of James Kantor and Partners and provisionally credited to the company of Vivian Ezra, Navian (Pty) Ltd. Ralph Sepel found it highly unusual to receive such a large sum of money without instructions and did not know why Ezra had chosen to operate this way. The deposit slip recording the banking of this R5, 000 in favour of Navian (Pty) Ltd. as the first annual instalment for the Liliesleaf Farm property is submitted to the court as Exhibit M.
Thereafter court was adjourned until 10:00am the following day.

Sources
Dictablets: (Vol.48/10A/37b) (Vol.48/10A/38b) (Vol.48/10A/39b) (Vol.48/10A/40b) (Vol.48/10A/41b) (Vol.48/10B/42b) (Vol.48/10B/43b) (Vol.48/10B/44b) (Vol.48/10B/45b) (Vol.48/10B/46b).
Percy Yutar Papers:
Handwritten notes from the prosecution for 9 December, 1963, (Ms.385/36/7).
WITS Historical Papers:
Evidence of I. E. Madka (AD1844.A17.1).
Extract of Evidence of I. E. Madka (AD1844.A17.2).
Defence Team’s abridged record of Witnesses (AD1844.A6.1).

Key Words
James Kantor and Partners, Harold Wolpe, James Kantor, Purchase of Liliesleaf Farm.