Kebonang's mother, Seretse await fate in NPF saga
Mpho Mokwape | Friday February 1, 2019 10:48
The two cases, which are part of the P230 million National Petroleum Fund (NPF) money laundering scandal are today before the Court of Appeal; first one being a ruling on the car and the latter arguments.
Mooketsi got entangled in the NPF saga as both her sons, Sadique and High Court Judge Zein Kebonang are implicated in the scandal.
Her car, a Mercedes-Benz make, was seized on suspicions it was bought through the proceeds of crime just like many cars belonging to Seretse.
The car was seized in 2018 together with those belonging to the others suspects. On Tuesday before CoA judge Justice Monametsi Gaongalelwe, Mooketsi who is seeking her car back on medical basis said she uses the vehicle to travel locally and internationally for medical reasons. Her attorney Unoda Mack told the court that the matter was urgent and want a stay on execution of order that was issued by the High Court in November 2018. He said his client was suffering due to the fact that she uses the car to travel for medical check ups between the country and South Africa.
“She has never hidden the car and has been using it for a long time, it was never bought with crime money as alleged,” he said. Mack questioned what crime his client committed pointing out that there was no evidence suggesting that the car was bought through NPF money.
He argued that there has been evidence represented for the car to be classified as proceeds of crime.
On the prejudice suffered as alleged by the State if the car was to be released, Mack said there was no such thing as the State can always apply for civil penalty order the car depreciates in any way. “They have known about the car since 2017 and that she was using it, now they can not claim prejudice now when she seek to have her car back to use it like she has always been doing,” he said. For Seretse, they are seeking to challenge the judicial restraint order against his house.
His attorney Ngakaagae said they intend to charge the order because as the State was using it to search the house.
He accused the State of using the order to search the house in an attempt to find evidence linking other people and in turn destroy the evidence.
“They want to search the house when they have no right to do so because they do not have a search warrant. That order is not a search warrant and cannot be used to search the house. They are just panicking because we said we were going to expose people, now they want to search the house to destroy any evidence linking those people,” he said.