Gaye Derby-Lewis not guilty

2003-06-18 11:04

Pretoria - Gaye Derby-Lewis has been acquitted of charges of illegally being in the possession of a revolver and a shotgun.

She wept with relief after being acquitted in Pretoria regional court on Wednesday.

"I want to swing from the chandeliers," said the wife of jailed former Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis as she left the courtroom.

"I feel very drained," she later told reporters. "It has been six months of stress, but I must say I now have faith in the justice system."

Magistrate Magriet Cook acquitted Derby-Lewis on a charge of illegally possessing a .38 Special revolver and an Iver Johnson shotgun, and the alternative charge of keeping the weapons without permission.

She was also found not guilty of not having a safe in which to lock away the firearms - including her own licensed Rossi revolver.

A charge of possessing 12 rounds of 9.65mm ammunition without having a gun able of firing them was withdrawn last month.

Derby-Lewis was arrested late last year in a countrywide swoop, dubbed Operation Hopper, which targeted people linked to the rightwing.

Her husband is serving a life sentence for the 1993 murder of SA Communist Party secretary-general Chris Hani.

- SAPA