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Menzi Simelane has launched a scathing attack against the Johannesburg Society of Advocates’ (JSA) inclusion of the Zondo commission report on Bosasa corruption in its case to have him disbarred, labelling it “scandalous“, and wants the court to strike it out.
The JSA applied to the high court in Johannesburg in October for the former National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head to be struck from the roll of legal practitioners or, alternatively, for him to be suspended from practising as an advocate for three years and to pay a fine of R500,000.
Being struck off the roll would mean Simelane could no longer practice and make a living as a legal practitioner.
The legal action is based on a JSA panel finding in 2017 that deemed him unfit and improper to remain an advocate of the high court. The finding considered his involvement in the suspension of former national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli in 2007.
JSA chairperson advocate Don Mahon, in an answering affidavit, argues that besides the Pikoli matter, Simelane’s integrity was questioned in the Zondo commission of inquiry into allegations of state capture.
Former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi, in his evidence at the commission, suggested Simelane’s potential involvement in the “shutting down of the Bosasa investigation”.
The Special Investigating Unit in 2009 probed allegations of irregularities and corruption in the correctional services department’s tenders with Bosasa.
Simelane, as head of the NPA in February 2010, advised advocate Glynnis Breytenbach the Bosasa case was not ready for prosecution until “a docket has been opened” and instructed her team to withdraw from it.
Agrizzi also alleged former NPA deputy director Nomgcobo Jiba was paid R100,000 monthly from 2010 to 2016, and other officials were paid lesser amounts to leak information about the Bosasa corruption probe.
The JSA attached Agrizzi’s testimony in the legal challenge to have Simelane disbarred, arguing Simelane “is, and remains, a risk to the public. The passage of time did not correct the unethical characteristics of the first respondent.”
Simelane, in a response filed this month to the use of the Zondo commission testimony, argues there was no truth to Agrizzi’s evidence that he “assisted shutting down the investigation”.
“I can state unequivocally that I have never met or spoken to Agrizzi,” he contends.
“The applicant [JSA] cannot demonstrate to the court that the extract [Agrizzi’s testimony] reveals evidence that I assisted Bosasa at all. It also cannot contend to the court that Agrizzi was telling the truth.
“If Agrizzi was considered to have given credible evidence and had submitted evidence thereof, I am confident that the Zondo commission would have called me to assist by providing an explanation.”
‘Irrelevant, vexatious and scandalous’
Simelane wants the court to strike out the JSA’s inclusion of the Zondo commission testimony “on the grounds that they are irrelevant, vexatious, and scandalous”.
“I was never called to answer to these self-evidently false utterances of a seasoned criminal and self-confessed racist who has a motive to implicate innocent people he considers strategically placed in order to escape accountability for his own conduct.
“I am confident that if Agrizzi was telling the truth, he would have indicated how that assistance was provided.” nth.
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