Drug dealer fights for freedom

The story of the Nigerian drug dealer who befriended the wife of South Africa's former Intelligence Minister Siyabonga Cwele continues to turn heads. Frank Nabolisa was an associate of Sheryl Cwele, the former wife of Cwele who is now SA’s ambassador to China. He divorced her in 2011, following the revelation of her role in drug trafficking. The Daily Maverick reports that Nabolisa, who was arrested and sentenced alongside Sheryl Cwele, has spent the past decade fighting to have two drug-related convictions overturned. His latest bid was denied by the SCA on 19 January. In May 2011, Nabolisa was convicted in the KZN High Court (Durban) alongside Cwele for drug dealing after it was discovered that they had sent Tessa Beetge to South America as a drug mule. Nabolisa and Cwele were each sentenced to 12 years in prison and that sentence was later increased to 20 years by the SCA. The Constitutional Court subsequently scrapped the SCA’s decision, reverting Nabolisa and Cwele’s sentence to 12 years. But this was not the end of Nabolisa’s run-ins with the law. In 2014, he was convicted in a separate drug case, after police found 2.4kg of cocaine, 5.8kg of paracetamol and 2.7kg of hexamine at his girlfriend’s house. In May 2014, he was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for dealing in drugs and 10 years’ imprisonment for contravening the Medicine and Related Substances Act. These sentences would begin once he had concluded the 12-year sentence handed down in 2011.

DM notes that Nabolisa’s latest challenge came before the SCA in August, criticising the process followed by Regional Magistrate Syta Prinsloo in finding him guilty. During the trial, Nabolisa and his co-accused Natasha Mashiane questioned the integrity of the forensic analysis process. Mashiane was acquitted. Acting Judge of Appeal Zamani Nhlangulela, who penned the judgment on behalf of the court, found that Nabolisa’s rights to a fair trial had not been violated. Nabolisa has one legal avenue left. He could appeal the SCA decision by approaching the Constitutional Court.