ANC MP Bongani Bongo has been ordered to go back to court and start his corruption trial from scratch after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) overturned his acquittal.
Bongo was acquitted of corruption in February 2021 by the then judge president of the Western Cape John Hlophe, who has since been impeached.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, acting judge John Smith said Hlophe had made "mistakes of law".
Had those not been made, Hlophe would have found that there was sufficient evidence to convict Bongo.
"I am also satisfied that there are reasonable prospects that the respondent would have been convicted of either the main or alternative charges mentioned in the indictment if the mistakes of law had not been made," said Smith.
Hlophe had found Bongo not guilty of attempting to bribe parliament’s Eskom inquiry evidence leader Ntuthuzelo Vanara. Hlophe dismissed the case after Bongo's lawyers filed an application for a discharge at the end of the state's case.
The application was filed on the basis there was no evidence on which a court would find him guilty.
Allegations were that on October 10 2017, Bongo had offered undue gratification to Vanara for him to fake illness or assist the accused in delaying and/or stopping parliament's inquiry into Eskom’s affairs.
However, Smith said: "There can, in my view, hardly be a more straightforward and unambiguous account of the unlawful offering of gratification to a public officer in order to induce him to perform a proscribed act.
"That the trial court was oblivious to this unequivocal and overt evidence of the commission of the crime of corruption can only be ascribed to its fundamentally erroneous understanding of the elements of that crime."
chabalalaj@sowetan.co.za
SCA overturns ANC MP Bongo's acquittal, orders corruption trial to start afresh
SCA overturns Judge Hlophe's acquittal verdict
ANC MP Bongani Bongo has been ordered to go back to court and start his corruption trial from scratch after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) overturned his acquittal.
Bongo was acquitted of corruption in February 2021 by the then judge president of the Western Cape John Hlophe, who has since been impeached.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, acting judge John Smith said Hlophe had made "mistakes of law".
Had those not been made, Hlophe would have found that there was sufficient evidence to convict Bongo.
"I am also satisfied that there are reasonable prospects that the respondent would have been convicted of either the main or alternative charges mentioned in the indictment if the mistakes of law had not been made," said Smith.
Hlophe had found Bongo not guilty of attempting to bribe parliament’s Eskom inquiry evidence leader Ntuthuzelo Vanara. Hlophe dismissed the case after Bongo's lawyers filed an application for a discharge at the end of the state's case.
The application was filed on the basis there was no evidence on which a court would find him guilty.
Allegations were that on October 10 2017, Bongo had offered undue gratification to Vanara for him to fake illness or assist the accused in delaying and/or stopping parliament's inquiry into Eskom’s affairs.
However, Smith said: "There can, in my view, hardly be a more straightforward and unambiguous account of the unlawful offering of gratification to a public officer in order to induce him to perform a proscribed act.
"That the trial court was oblivious to this unequivocal and overt evidence of the commission of the crime of corruption can only be ascribed to its fundamentally erroneous understanding of the elements of that crime."
chabalalaj@sowetan.co.za