Seretse beats corruption charge
Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday August 4, 2014 17:37
When making the order Justice Tshepo Motswagole, said “count one of the amended indictment is quashed for being prejudicial to the accused”.
The hearing on Friday was to deal with two matters. The first issue related to a ruling made by Justice Motswagole on June 13 which ordered DPP to furnish the Accused with further particulars relating to the charges made against him. The second matter related to the application by the accused to have the charges against him quashed.
The State, represented by Attorney M. Ditodi of the DPP was unsuccessful in persuading the judge to deal with the issue of whether they had furnished the accused with sufficient particulars as ordered by the court before the court proceeded to the matter regarding application to quash the charges.
Justice Motswagole rejected the State’s suggestion for the court to determine if sufficient particulars had been furnished to the accused. He was not amused that DPP had failed to comply with the court order.
Defence Counsel, Michael Hellens, dismissed Ditodi’s claim that DPP had furnished them with sufficient particulars pertaining to the charges. He was forceful in appealing to the judge to proceed with the application to quash the charges.
When he was given the opportunity to proceed with the application to quash, Hellen’s engaged in a spirited attack on the DPP response to their request for further particulars.
He challenged the State, “Plead the offense as per the law as stated in Your Lordship’s judgement. Stick to the section in the Act. How do we go to trial when being a referee does not show interest? How can we go to trial when there is no averment to the arbitrary act as stated in Count 2? “You can’t plead to a nebulous and convoluted charge. You can’t plead to something which is not a crime. We do not understand your charges. It is not fair, constitutional or just that an accused should go on trial without clarity from the indictment as to what he is alleged to have done.”
Hellen’s said since the accused has not been provided with the particularity to which he is entitled the indictment was calculated to prejudice and embarrass his client.
In his response Ditodi struggled to persuade the judge that the amended charges were phrased properly and that sufficient particulars had been given to the accused.
He said Hellens was raising issues of evidence which he said he was not prepared to disclose because it was premature.
When the Judge told him that the accused sort specific particulars, and that the court ordered DPP to provide those particulars as it relates to the issue of interest, Ditodi responded, “My Lord that is a matter of evidence. We supplied particulars. We can’t mention them in a charge sheet”.
Justice Motswagole ruled in favour of the accused on the first charge as he pronounced that “Count One of the amended indictment is quashed for being prejudicial to the accused.”
According to the charge sheet, Count One read, “[Seretse] while under the employ of Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, which is a public body, as the Chief Executive Officer and whilst a referee to the second accused person’s company; a company called Serala (Pty) Ltd with which BTC proposed to deal with, Seretse failed to disclose the nature of his interest in that company and knowingly participated in the proceedings of the BTC Board relating to the awarding of tender no BTC/Mob/DLR003/2008-09 to Serala”.
Regarding the second count the Judge agreed to grant the State yet another amendment to the charge to indicate that Seretse acted arbitrarily.
Earlier Ditodi had said it was an oversight that the word “arbitrarily” was left out in the charge. This was the third amendment to the charges since the case started at the Village Magistrate Court in November 2013.