Mhlauli to fall or stand on Oremeng

GIDEON NKALA
Staff Writer | Friday November 30, 2007 00:00

 

The two men who were partners in a fabricated case but who in the present case have been turned foes with Mhlauli being the accused and Kadimo Oremeng turning the prosecution star witness as an accomplice.

'Your Worship, the story that we are here to tell you and that we would like you to believe is that Mhlauli took a decision to award land to Eddie Norman in preparation for his retirement,' argued Prosecutor Wesson Manchwe.

In a single sentence, Manchwe had summed what seemed to be the pith of their case. In his analogy, the piece of land was at the centre of the case and everything else was done either to aid or show why the land was wanted so badly by the accused.

Manchwe maintained that it was common cause that the standard principle of sending applications for land was to send applications to the Department of Lands; in circumstances where such applications are sent to the ministry, they will be forwarded to the Department of Lands.

'We know in the case of Eddie Norman's application that his application was sent to the ministry. It was transmitted to the Department of Lands by the Deputy Permanent Secretary to the lands department. If matters had ended there, I would not be standing here prosecuting.

'Unfortunately, matters did not end there. The accused (Mhlauli) developed considerable interest in the Riverwalk plot, which resulted in him directing the lands department that they should allocate Eddie Norman the Riverwalk plot and Kadimo Oremeng, through a company called KOVK, be allocated a plot in Block 5. May be if issues were left there, the accused could be pardoned that he interfered in good faith, but he does not leave matters there.'

Manchwe tells the court that barely after Mhlauli had retired, he approaches Norman by telling him that he should remember that it was he (Mhlauli) who assisted him to get a plot, 'so you must give me something.'

'Norman tells him off, saying that he was doing his duty as a public servant.'

After he was told off by Norman, continues Manchwe, Mhlauli approaches Oremeng in Thabala, telling him that he had denied him a plot which he gave to Norman who has now run off with the plot and has since sold it for P3 million and has not given him his share. He wanted Oremeng to help him to reverse the allocation so that they get back the plot from Norman.

Manchwe says after the Thabala trip, 'we see Mhlauli's ferocious interest in the land', including even writing false statements to initiate a false case that came before the High Court and doctoring government documents.

Manchwe must have known that for their story to appear very plausible, they have a mountain to climb to dislodge the evidence of Eddie Norman who, during his evidence-in -chief, said he did not know Mhlauli and that they had no business dealings.

This piece of evidence contradicted the evidence that was led by the prosecution star witness, Oremeng, that Mhlauli had told him that he had a deal with Norman.

'We know our own witness Eddie Norman said he did not have any deal with the accused. We do not think he told the court what exactly happened. We believe he was not candid. Something must have happened between Norman and Mhlauli. The behaviour of Mhlauli in pursuit of Oremeng's case shows that he had interest.'

Perhaps satisfied that he had done enough to illuminate the opaque speck in their evidence, he proceeded to make submissions on the allocations.

'In our view, the allocation of land to Norman was not proper because it emanated directly from the ministry. It did not follow the established procedure. Officials of the Department of Lands had said that it was inferior. The Chief Lands Officer, Mildzani Majingo, has been assailed in court for failing to state that Norman's application was inferior.

'The truth is that he was simply not allowed to because the Permanent Secretary had made a directive. This allocation was improper because there was a competing application and it was not even considered,' argued Manchwe.

Manchwe said the decision to award land to Norman was irrational. 'It was capricious, and once it became capricious, it became improper. It was not based on sound consideration. It was despotic.'

He implored the court to convict the accused because they had sufficiently proved that the accused had abused his public office. He said when the court looks at the documentary evidence and the viva voce evidence, it will not come to any conclusion but that an offence has been committed as charged.

'We have proved beyond reasonable doubt and reasonable does not mean all doubt. On the charge of giving false information to a Commissioner of Oaths, which apparently is the more serious of the two offences that Mhlauli has been charged with, Manchwe said the matter is so clear-cut that there should be no dispute'.

He referred to a finding by Justice Nganunu to the effect that the validity of an affidavit depends on whether it says it has been sworn to, and if it says so, it becomes an affidavit.

Even on this charge, it became clear that the court would have to wade through the irreconcilable evidence of the two estranged former bedfellows.

Mhlauli maintains that an oath was not taken and Kadimo's evidence is that an oath was administered.

'What the defence is saying is that the omission of the words 'So help me God' is the difference,' charged Manchwe.

He argued that the gist of the evidence given by attorney Pepsi Smakello-Thuto, who was the Commissioner of Oaths, is that everything was properly done.

The accused person says that an oath was not taken but at the beginning when Oremeng was asked how many false affidavits he swore, he said three, thus indicating that the affidavit at the Commissioner of Oaths was sworn to and this was not challenged in cross-examination.

Evidence that it was not challenged is admitted.
He took issue with the view held by the defence that since the Commissioner of Oaths had said that she did not have independent recollections of the events of that day, it meant that she did not know whether she administered the oath or not.

'They misunderstood her candidness.'
Manchwe said the bottom line is that Mhlauli wrote an untruth, knowing it to be an untruth.

'We have met the highest standard of proof in criminal law,' he said. 'The state does not necessarily need to close all avenues of doubt. If there is a slight gap, it does not follow that we should close it. It is our submission that we have done enough'.