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Mpumalanga taxi boss Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni and his three co-accused have each been released on R70,000 bail after the state declined to oppose their applications.
The release terms came after Sibanyoni, Bafana Sindane, Mvimbi Masilela and Philemon Msiza had handed themselves over at the Delmas police station on Thursday.
During the bail application, defence counsel Shaun Abrahams SC said his client, Sibanyoni, had handed himself over against his professional advice.
“The warrant is unlawful. It’s unconstitutional, it’s an abuse of process, and the obtaining thereof lacks rationality. The appropriate process that should have been adopted by the authorities would have been [those contained in] section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Act,” he said, adding that was the reason the accused would be challenging the state in the high court.
On Wednesday evening, Sibanyoni and Sindane filed an urgent interdict application at Mbombela high court requesting that the court block police from executing the J50 warrants and stop the NPA from re-enrolling the matter on the docket.
Among matters they challenged were that their alleged offences were committed in Kwaggafontein and not Delmas.
“The magistrate at Delmas had no authority, power, or jurisdiction to issue warrants of arrest in respect of offences committed within the Thembisile Hani sub-district,” read the application.
Sibanyoni and his co-accused are accused of extorting R2m from businessman Thomas Ntuli between 2022 and 2025.
The money is alleged to have been a protection fee to allow him to operate his mine in Kwaggafontein.
He laid charges against Sibanyoni and others in November last year.
The accused have all denied the allegations.
The matter has been postponed to September.
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