Thursday, November 7, 2024

State stuck with “bad lawyer” against Isaac Kgosi

The state is hoping against hope that a lawyer they have no confidence in may pulls off a miracle and successfully prosecute former Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) Isaac Kgosi for his alleged role in the P250 National Petroleum Fund corruption.

In a clear vote of no confidence, the Attorney General’s Chambers and the Directorate of Public Prosecution last week dropped attorney Mpho Letsoalo from Moeletsi Attorneys and replaced him with a more competent lawyer from Thapelo Attorneys to lead the prosecution against Kgosi.

High Court Judge Michael Leburu however insisted that the Attorney General should continue using the seemingly incompetent Letsoalo to prosecute the high-profile corruption case.

Justice Leburu last week rebuffed an application by the state to drop Letsoalo and replace him with the lawyer from Thapelo Attorneys.

Presenting the application to switch lawyers, Charles Gulubane from the Attorney General’s Chambers disclosed that the state has a “crisis of confidence” in Mpho Letsoalo, the lawyer they procured from Moeletsi Attorneys to prosecute Isaac Kgosi.

Gulubane asked the court to postpone the case against Kgosi to give the state time to brief new lawyers.

Gulubane told the court that they have already instructed a different lawyer from Thapelo attorneys to represent them and prayed with court to give them an opportunity to put their house in order.

Justice Leburu asked why the Attorney Generals Chambers and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions as the biggest law firms in the country seemed to be struggling with attorneys and even outsourcing prosecutorial services to private attorneys.

In his reply Gulubane said their decision to drop Moeletsi Attorneys followed an urgent meeting last week to asses the competency of the law firm after representing them in a case in which they suffered a fatal loss against Kebonang brothers before three panels of judges.

In his ruling Justice Leburu agreed with defense lawyer Unoda Mack and refused to grant the state time to appoint a more competent lawyer because the state had failed to comply with Order 4 rule (9) and (11) of the High Court.

He said the rules require parties to notify the registrar of the High Court five days before the matter can resume and not a day as the states did. The judge ordered for the matter to proceed.

In his argument, Unoda Mack representing Isaac Kgosi said there was no evidence linking his client to two counts of abuse office.

“I challenge AG to produce evidence that Kgosi has abused office.” Mack also challenged the state to produce evidence proving that Kgosi abused when handling money from special funds, and the NPF.

Mack argued that Kgosi used powers vested on him by the DIS Act and requested money for special operations and the money was approved by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy Dr Obakeng.

He pointed out that Dr Obakeng authorized the variation and later cancelled it, however by the time he called off the variation the DIS had already signed a contract with Dignia (Pty) Ltd, money had been transferred to purchased special equipment for the intelligence outfit DIS and all the equipment was delivered on time.

He said the DIS Act allowed the DIS Director General to embark on expenditure without any limitation.

Mack said section 6 of the DIS Act gave Kgosi/or Director General of DIS the powers particularly funds obtained outside the budget of DIS to embark on lawful expenditure without any limitation. He said these are funds which are normally diverted and used from special operations funds.

He said the record will reflect that the statement of the current DIS Director General Peter Magosi does not say it was illegal to obtain money from NPF.

In his submission Mpho Letsoalo who had earlier before court attempted to withdraw from the matter following an application to withdraw his service continued with the matter.

Letsoalo argued that Kgosi abused his office because he was not authorized to divert funds from NPF to DIS.

He said Kgosi failed to follow the PPADB Act and that some DIS officials through their affidavit stated that the tender with Dignia (Pty) Ltd was unlawful. Letsoalo requested Kgosi’s review application to be dismissed with cost.

Judge Leburu is expected to make a ruling on the 26th November 2020.

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