ROOM A in Durban's Supreme Court is a fine old example of traditional courtroom architecture all wood panelling, crude benches and functional tables, with a raised counter for the judge and his assessors to sit behind.
The only new thing in it is the dock, built from a slightly shinier wood and specially designed to sent 20 people in comfort. Yesterday Gen Magnus Malan and his 19 co accused in the KwaMakutha massacre trial had their first opportunity to inspect the dock which, for the next few months, will be their second home.
True to form, the opening day of South Africa's most momentous murder trial sputtered out after an hour of legal arguments, conducted mostly in Afrikanns. Following complaints from all six defence teams, Judge Jan Hugo agreed to postpone the trial for another week to allow the defendants more time to consider the consolidated indictment, a massive 250 page document laboriously setting out the state's case.
Yesterday the defendants watched the proceedings stiffly and, silently from their double rowed dock, seated in apparent order of rank. For once, the generals were leading from the front.
At front right sat Gen Malan himself, former head of the Defence Staff and for 11 years South Africa's notorious minister for defence. Into the back row on the left were sandwiched six younger black men in cheap clothing, the alleged members of the Inkatha Freedom Party "hit squad" which, on January 21st 1987, machine gunned 13 men, women and children to death in a planned attack on a pro African National Congress household in KwaMakutha township, near Durban.
Between the blacks and Gen Malan, stretching up one row and down the other like a command structure diagram, sat the deputy, general secretary of the Inkatha Freedom Party, a former security police colonel and 11 senior retired army officers, including the former head of intelligence and two retired heads of the army.
Over the next few months the South African state will try to prove that all 20 were part of a chain of murderous intent which began when Gen Malan offered to set up a bodyguard and political hit squad for the IFP leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
The KwaMakutha massacre was one of the first known hit squad killings in the IFP's KwaZuluNatal heartland, part of a wave of black on black political violence which has cost up to 20,000 lives and still has not abated.
Ironically, if guilty all 20 defendants would probably be eligible for amnesty from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which is due to begin investigating apartheid era political crime next month. Gen Malan has repeatedly denied that he would ever consider making such an application, however "My conscience is clear," he told reporters as he left the courtroom yesterday.