Ex-prosecutor in dock over dagga docket

A former Cape Town prosecutor is accused of accepting a bribe to get rid of a docket relating to a dagga case.

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Cape Town – A former legal aid attorney was summoned to a prosecutor’s office at the Bellville District Court, where a discussion was in progress about a missing police docket, a court in Cape Town heard on Monday.

Karen Chapman, now an advocate in the employ of a bank, testified at the trial of former prosecutor Jonas Phoshoko, in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court.

Phoshoko has pleaded not guilty, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, to one charge of corruption, two of theft and two of defeating the ends of justice.

He is in the dock with Mlahleni Mgingi, who has pleaded not guilty to one charge of corruption, one of theft and one of defeating the ends of justice.

It is alleged that Mgingi bribed Phoshoko to get rid of the dagga docket.

Chapman told the court that she was Mgingi’s legal aid attorney in 2009, in the dagga case.

Mgingi’s trial was scheduled to commence in November, 2009, when the prosecutor informed her that the docket was missing.

Chapman said she was later called to the prosecutor’s office, where Mgingi was in discussion, in Xhosa, with the court prosecutor and the senior prosecutor.

An interpreter who was also called to the office, informed her that the discussion was about the missing docket, but not about the dagga case itself.

Because she was only acting for Mgingi in the dagga case, and not in the matter of the missing docket, she did not pay attention to the discussion.

Even when she was informed later, still in the office, that they suspected Mgingi was behind the missing docket, she did not pay much attention because she was only his lawyer in the dagga matter, she said.

She added: “It turned out that I had not been called to the office about the dagga case, but to be informed about the missing docket.”

Asked by defence attorney Zukisani Bobetjani, for Mgingi, what her role was in the prosecutor’s office, she replied: “I really don’t know – I thought I was merely a spectator.”

She said Mgingi had only signed legal aid documents in relation to the dagga case, not about the missing docket.

“I informed the senior prosecutor that I knew nothing about the docket going missing, or about my client being a suspect.”

Questioned by prosecutor Derek Vogel, she said she had an LLB degree, but her qualification did not prepare her for a court environment.

The legal aid authorities compensated with practical training, including how to consult a client, and an accused person’s rights.

She agreed that the disappearance of a docket was a “very serious” problem, and that steps had to be taken to find it.

She added: “No one in the prosecutor’s office told me that my client was going to be charged in relation to the missing docket.

“The only reason I was in the office was to find out if the dagga case was going to run that day.”

The case continues on October 28.

ANA

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