Johannesburg - The legal team of the acting Mpumalanga Director of Public Prosecutions, Matric Luphondo, will be bringing an application challenging the authorisation to have him prosecuted.
As the trial within a trial surrounding the admissibility of evidence collected in the fraud case against Luphondo was due to resume in the high court earlier today, the matter had to be stood down as his legal team informed the court they would be bringing an application forward.
The legal counsel for Luphondo, Danie Dorfling, told the court that they would be bringing the application on the basis that the authorisation to prosecute Luphondo was not personally signed by the director of public prosecutions (DPP).
Dorfling told the court that, as a result, Luphondo was not properly charged as the decision did not comply with the National Prosecuting Authority’s policy directives.
Judge Anthony Miller indicated that due to this, he would stand the matter down today to allow the legal counsel time to submit their application and the state, led by well-known advocate Barry Roux, to respond to it.
Millar said that seeing as how it would be improbable that the court would be able to continue with the cross-examination of director of public prosecutions in Pretoria, Vernon Nemaorani, they would adjourn for the day and resume with his testimony on Friday, pending the outcome of the application.
Luphondo and his co-accused, the head of the Mpumalanga Department of Human Settlements, Kebone Masange, are facing as many as 10 charges, in particular corruption and defeating the administration of justice.
The pair were accused of bribing a prosecutor to drop a case of fraud and contraventions of the Immigration Act against Masange.
The matter is to resume tomorrow and proceed with the proposed application by Luphondo’s legal team.
The Star