Court Orders Release Of Bakang Seretse & Co's Assets
Mpho Mokwape | Monday August 27, 2018 14:11
Seretse and two others are charged with money laundering in a case in which P230 million was diverted from the National Petroleum Fund (NPF).
They will get their assets pending the review of the validation of the seizure warrant and its finalisation.
Lobatse High Court judge, Jennifer Dube on Friday ordered that DCEC should release the assets into the custody of the accused pending the review.
Judge Dube had found DCEC at fault for obtaining an order validating the seizure without informing the accused persons.
“The procedure used by DCEC was flawed and irregular. The warrant of seizure issued by the Magistrate on June 21, 2018 be and is hereby suspended pending the final determination of the issues surrounding the validation of same warrant by the Regional Magistrate,” she said.
Dube also ordered that the assets are not to be sold to anyone or pass ownership in any shape or form and that they are not to be used in a manner as to accelerate the depreciation of their value.
Also the assets are not to leave the country as per the judge’s order.
Further the judge having found that the matter was urgent ordered that clerk of court of the Broadhurst Magistrate Court within 7 days hereof, furnish the accused with all pleadings as were filed and upon which reliance was placed by the DCEC for obtaining the search and seizure warrant on June 21, 2018.
She also explained that the matter of granting of a warrant of seizure of the accused’s assets would be remitted back to the Broadhurst Magistrate Court for management and determination by the Regional Magistrate within 14 days of availing the Applicants with a record of proceedings.
Meanwhile, the small victory for Seretse and his co-accused follows a clash last week with the DCEC after they accused the crime intelligence for obtaining an absolute court order validating the seizure of their property.
They had argued that that the DCEC closed them out of objecting to the continuous seizure of their property by obtaining an order without even informing them or serving them with the documents.
In not so many words through their lawyer, they accused the DCEC of applying dodgy means to obtain the order.