Man acquitted on insulting charges

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Tuesday July 8, 2008 00:00

Reetsang Mathambo, a former employee of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) is said to have hauled insults and all kinds of obscenities at his former colleague Seele Mabuza who went to his house to collect imprest money, as instructed by his superiors.

Senior Magistrate Thato Mujaji said that she did not feel that the state had 'proven its case beyond reasonable doubt'. She said that as far as she was concerned the employees of the DCEC could have been trying to fix each other.

Mujaji said that unfortunately the case had 'no single pure' independent witness. She said either the witnesses were employees of the DCEC or relatives of the complainant.

'The evidence is not clear,' she said. Mujaji said that even though the accused had a motive as he had been asked to resign from DCEC, she had no choice but to acquit because the state's case was weak.

Mujaji said that prior to the incident before court the accused had been asked to resign from his job at DCEC. She said that what made the matter difficult was the fact that all the key parties and some witnesses were DCEC employees.

'The complainant was assigned to go and collect the accused in regard to outstanding imprest, but he refused,' she said.

During trial the accused had told court that he did not utter insults instead the complainant is the one who told him he was a fool. The evidence that was brought forward by state witnesses suggested that the accused insulted the complainant using extremely vulgar language including telling him that he would castrate him.