CONVICTED drug dealer Sheryl Cwele’s 20-year sentence, imposed by the Supreme Court of Appeal, has been reduced to the original 12-year sentence handed down by the Pietermaritzburg High Court to her and co-accused Frank Nabolisa.
And, according to media reports, her jail time could be further reduced if she qualified for the special remission of sentence that President Jacob Zuma announced earlier this year. She has already served nine months in jail.
Cwele, the former Hibiscus Coast head of community health and the former wife of state security minister, Siyabonga Cwele, and Nigerian national Nabolisa were sentenced in May 2011, after they were found guilty of dealing in cocaine. When they appealed, however, they received a stiffer, 20-year sentence.
Nabolisa successfully applied to the Constitutional Court to have the lighter sentence reinstated, the court upholding his argument that the State was required to appeal the sentences before they could be increased in the Appeal Court.
Cwele’s more recent application to the Constitutional Court was not opposed by the state and the court granted an order for her sentence to revert to the original 12 years.
Cwele hit the headlines when she was arrested on drug-related charges after a South Coast woman, Tessa Beetge, was arrested at Sao Paulo airport in Brazil. Police had found 10kg of cocaine in her luggage.
Cwele and Nabolisa were later found guilty of using Beetge to smuggle cocaine from Brazil into South Africa. At their trial another South Coast woman, Charmaine Moss testified that Cwele and Nabolisa had tried to recruit her as a drug mule as well.
Beetge is still in jail in Brazil where she has served five years of her eight-year sentence.
