The Little Rivonia Trial was a South African apartheid-era court case in which several members of the armed resistance organization Umkhonto we Sizwe faced charges of sabotage.
The accused were: Laloo Chiba, Dave Kitson, Mac Maharaj, John Matthews and Wilton Mkwayi.
[1] Judge W. G. Boshoff presided over the November to December 1964 trial, with human rights lawyer George Bizos one of the advocates appearing for the defence.
Maharaj's legal representatives were expecting that he would receive the death penalty for his Central Committee membership of the South African Communist Party, a banned organization at the time.
[4] While Kitson and Matthews (both white), were imprisoned in Pretoria Central Prison and joined Denis Goldberg and for Mkwayi, Maharaj and Chiba joined Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu, and other prominent African National Congress members for hard labour at the famous Robben Island quarry.