MBOMBELA – According to his legal representative, the fraud case against former Hawks head, Gen Simon Mapyane, has not been substantiated fully. On Friday, defence advocate Mr Herman Goosen, applied for the discharge of his client on four of the five counts he was charged with in 2013.
The fraud case against Mapyane was instituted after he filed remuneration claims totalling more than R13 000. It is alleged that he was not entitled to do so. The claims pertained to apparent trips to Pretoria for a court case on August 2 and August 3, 2010 as well as for work on September 1 and 9 that year. Another related to a trip to Ogies on August 25, 2012.
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State advocate, Mr Deon Laminga, called on witnesses including policemen, a state prosecutor and data experts, to testify. Earlier this year, Dr Peter Schmitz, a data-mapping expert, led evidence regarding Mapyane’s cellphone’s activity on the relevant days in August.
“It is possible that other people used his cellphone on those days,” said Goosen in his client’s defence.
State advocate, Ms Grace Mosethla, testified that she could not recall whether Mapyane was instructed to be at court on those days.
“The accused, on August 3, September 1 and September 9, was not in Pretoria as he had claimed,” said Laminga on Friday. This was according to testimony delivered by, among others, digital fleet management consultant for the SAPS’ Automatic Vehicle Location Project, Mr Eric Deysil, in October.
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On Friday, Goosen answered that Mapyane may have made negligent mistakes in filling out his travel claims. The travel claim for August 25 indicated that Mapyane had driven to Ogies in his private vehicle for a meeting. The meeting lasted through the night and he returned the next morning.
State witnesses said that he had gone there in a police kombi, which would leave him without the right to claim for these travels.
On Friday, Mr Stuart Nicholson, former digital fleet management consultant for the SAPS’ Automatic Vehicle Location Project, testified that a SAPS kombi had travelled between Mbombela and Ogies on August 25. According to Nicholson, it was driven back to Mbombela the next morning.
“The general was not in the kombi,” defended Goosen.
Goosen said that the state had not properly substantiated four of the five charges.
Laminga differed and said that Mapyane had to account for his apparent misrepresentations under oath.
“The accused should not be discharged. His testimony under oath must be cross-examined,” he said and pleaded with the magistrate, Ms Venessa Joubert, against the dropping of charges.
At time of going to press, Lowvelder had not yet received confirmation on when judgement in Mapyane’s application would be handed down.
