The Directorate of Public Prosecution intends to appeal the recent ruling by Lobatse High Court judge, Maruping Dibotelo, which ordered that criminal trial against the former Managing Director of Debswana, Louis Nchindo, his son Garvas, Joe Matome and Jacob Sesenyi, which was scheduled to continue before Southern Region Magistrate Lot Moroka on 6 July, 2009 be stayed.
This was confirmed by Matlhogonolo Phuthego of the DPP.
Phuthego said that they had come to the decision of appealing against the matter after thoroughly studying the ruling and realising that they were abundant grounds for them to appeal.
Asked if the appeal would be heard in the current session of Court of Appeal, which started on Thursday, Phuthego said it would not because of the time factor.
”We had wished it could be heard but it can not because of the time factor, unfortunately, and it seems it will only be heard in the next session of Court of Appeal in January,” he said.
In his ruling that the criminal case be stayed till the finalization of applications before him, Dibotelo said that it was fair that the criminal case be stayed till the finalization of applications before him.
In a related matter of DPP appeals, the DPP is reported to be also considering to appeal against Lobatse High Court judge Lakhginder Walia’s judgment which recently set aside one and half years suspended sentence against former Public Procurement and Assert Disposal Board Chief Executive, Armando Lionjanga.
Moroka sentenced Lionjanga to one and half years wholly suspended. He was found guilty of corruption and that he had taken part in a board meeting in which his nephew, Kagiso Makgekgenene, and his sister Alice’s company was awarded a tender for supplying skimmed milk to the Ministry of Local Government.
