Staff Reporter
FISHROT accused and former Minister of Justice, Sacky Shanghala, has brought an application for the disclosure of further documents in the matter, adding that the state has not disclosed all documents related to the case, which he says is prejudicial to the accused.
Shanghala, citing past judgments, argued that for a fair trial, the prosecution should provide full disclosure, and that failure to do so creates a material irregularity in trial proceedings. He added that the state has not provided reasons or legal authorities as to why full disclosure of certain documents has not been made, and has merely indicated to the accused that they are not entitled to them.
The former minister also attacked an audit report by the company Deloitte, adding that the report, which the PG calls an audit report, does not qualify to be termed as such according to international auditing standards.
Shanghala added that there is a need to see if the Namibian Police exercised their duties in accordance with the law, as certain evidence may have been obtained illegally.
“Now we understand the real reason why the state is so quick to carry on with the proceedings of this trial — so they can lock us in a prosecution of unlawfully obtained evidence. The state has not claimed any privilege; they just say you are not entitled to it. They have not adduced a shred of evidence as to why full disclosure should not be ordered by the court,” Shanghala said.
Shanghala further claimed that the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has been weaponised in this case and questioned why evidence obtained from his residence has disappeared.
“I was a member of the Swapo Party Central Committee. You could find documents of mine from the Ministry of Justice, you could find documents of mine of private interest, you would have found documents of mine of Swapo activities — those documents do not support the state. I’m not saying Mr Marondedze or the PG had anything to do with the disappearance of the documents. But I’m definitely saying that question marks should be put around the conduct of the ACC. Those documents show conspiracy. How do you steal quotas? By the way, I don’t know. They show why money was flowing into people’s accounts and what they were doing with that money. Some of the evidence is there. They have disclosed some of it. Even to the extent where jerseys were bought for the Swapo congress,” Shanghala said.
He added that documents of accused two, Bernard Esau, have also disappeared and questioned why he had been arrested on 27 November 2019, Election day, warning that state institutions should not be misused and should remain impartial.
