Catherine Rice
African News Agency
ANC national executive committee member Tony Yengeni has told the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court he was not drunk when arrested on August 11, 2013 in Green Point.
Yengeni said: “If I was five times over the legal limit, I would have caused a serious accident. I don’t agree with the State’s case that I was drunk.”
The ANC veteran believes the case against him is a political conspiracy engineered by the DA.
During a heated cross-examination yesterday, he was adamant his case had been expedited because of who he was. His blood samples were analysed within two weeks of being taken, which was unusual as the forensic laboratory usually battled major backlogs.
“It means citizens are treated unequally. Why? I’m asking myself why it is that my blood is so important it must jump the queue.”
But State prosecutor Leon Snyman argued there was nothing “weird about asking for someone’s blood to be expedited”.
“You have such an issue that your blood was expedited, but your trial only started in 2015. You are saying it was done because you think there is some influence there.
“There was no push from the State to start your trial. This picture of a conspiracy doesn’t fit.”
Yengeni has insisted that he only had three sips of African beer on the day of his arrest and that he was not intoxicated. This is despite his blood alcohol showing he was five times over the legal limit.
He was shown footage earlier in court of him driving his car over a barrier line. Yengeni was forced to concede that “the video footage speaks for itself”.
His defence lawyer, Dirk Uijs, handed documents to magistrate Grant Engel in a bid to prove the defence’s contention that the case was a political conspiracy.
These included a statement by DA MP Diane Kohler Barnard released the day after Yengeni’s arrest, and an e-mail by a senior prosecutor to the forensic laboratory instructing it to expedite the analysis of Yengeni’s blood sample.
The statement called for justice and referred to drunk-driving charges against Yengeni in 2007.
Engel postponed the case to June 24.