SA still to decide on prosecution of Bushiri advocates

After two months, South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has yet to decide whether to prosecute two of its senior advocates for corruption for failing to charge self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri over the alleged rape of children and young women. According to an information sheet, which the Mail & Guardian says it has seen, a criminal docket was sent to the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on 1 March for the NPA to make a decision about whether to prosecute Adina van Deventer and Alicia Roos for corruption and defeating the ends of justice. This has raised questions among senior law enforcement and NPA sources about whether the authority would be objective in the matter, given that it has steadfastly defended Van Deventer and Roos’ handling of the Bushiri prosecution. Bushiri fled SA for his native Malawi in November 2020, days after he and his wife Mary were released on bail of $10 200 each by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court. They had been arrested on fraud and money-laundering charges involving more than $5.1m. The case against Van Deventer and Roos was opened in March 2021 by Lieutenant- Colonel Phumla Mrwebi, who was the lead investigator in the rape and human-trafficking leg of the probe into Bushiri’s alleged crimes.

The M&G says it has also established that investigators allegedly ‘forced’ two of Bushiri’s alleged victims, who attended his Enlightened Christian Gathering and were aged 17 and 21 when the alleged rapes and trafficking occurred, to make withdrawal statements, exonerating  Bushiri. After Mrwebi opened the case against Van Deventer and Roos in March 2021, more than three months after Bushiri fled SA, there was no activity on the criminal docket until September 2021, according to an internal police report. The report shows the next activity on the docket was on 1 March this year when it was booked and taken to the Pretoria Magistrate’s court for a decision on whether to prosecute Van Deventer and Roos. The docket was booked out about five days after the M&G published its first investigation into allegations that the two advocates had shielded Bushiri from prosecution by impeding his arrest. In an affidavit against the two prosecutors, Mrwebi claimed that after she completed her Bushiri rape probe in February 2019, the NPA — on two occasions in August and October 2019 — ‘blocked’ Bushiri’s arrest. She then opened a corruption and defeating the ends of justice criminal case against the prosecutors.