Department confirms NPA received Bushiri rape report

The Justice Department has confirmed receiving an investigative report detailing how two prosecutors ‘delayed justice’ over rape charges against self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri, adding that the NPA was best placed to deal with the alleged misconduct. Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for the Justice & Correctional Services Ministry, confirmed that the July 2020 report by the Hawks, implicating state Advocates Adina van Deventer and Alicia Roos in stalling the arrest of Bushiri on rape and human trafficking charges, mentions that NPA head Shamila Batohi was furnished with a copy. Twice the NPA denied that Batohi received the report, notes a Mail & Guardian report. However, Phiri said the report the NPA is denying had already been submitted formally to Batohi, ‘therefore the Ministry did not re-submit it to the NPA, as the NPA already had a copy thereof.’ Phiri’s comments come after the M&G reported how the NPA was unwilling to pursue the rape charges against Bushiri, who together with his wife faced separate R102m fraud charges, for fear of appearing to harass him.

Despite Phiri’s confirmation, NPA chief communications director Bulelwa Makeke said the authority was ‘not in receipt of the report’. ‘The office of the NDPP has no record of receipt of the said report and it remains to be confirmed where or how this report was submitted. The NPA, having had no sight of such misconduct allegations against the prosecutors or a report to that effect, could not have conducted such (an) investigation as would have been required,’ Makeke said. She said the NPA supported the decisions of Van Deventer and Roos not to charge Bushiri before he fled the country, adding that the prosecutors displayed the ‘correct principles and standard of prosecutor-guided investigations to ensure that the state has a formidable case to prosecute in a criminal trial’. Notes, which the M&G says it has seen, show that days before the Bushiris fled, the Hawks’ Lieutenant-Colonel Phumla Mrwebi met Van Deventer and Roos for warrants of arrest to be issued for the alleged rapes. But, according to the notes, Van Deventer and Roos said they would not pursue this particular case against Bushiri because it ‘will look as if we are harassing him’.