Witness 'auctions' govt for extended booking

OLIVER MODISE
Staff Writer | Wednesday August 8, 2007 00:00

The state and the attorney generals chambers are cited as the 1st and 2nd respondents respectively in a court order made by Justice Mpathi Phumaphi.
Venter said he could not file any papers last year because Justice Phumaphi was busy with the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) case. For two years the state has been ignoring the suit, he claims.

 
'Up to now government has not paid, but I am working on the necessary papers to enforce the court order to attach government goods,' he pointed out. There was no option but to attach government vehicles of the attorney general for auction, he said.
For two weeks the AG's attorneys were struggling to locate Witness's file.
In 2005 Justice Phumaphi ordered the state to pay Witness damages for unlawful imprisonment for 349 days while in actual fact the plaintiff had finished serving his sentence.

 
In 2000 Witness was sentenced, in two separate actions, to a year's imprisonment by the Gumare customary court running consecutively and in October the same year, a magistrate court convicted him for another 12 months.
It was held that the sentences would run concurrently. The complainant in this case was to serve 18 months.

 
Instead of being released on the 16th of December 2000, he was released in December 2001.Contacted on the matter, Justice Phumaphi said that he was not aware that his judgement had not been executed.
He said the applicant's lawyer knows the proper judicial steps to follow.