Pretoria - After serving seven years in jail for an armed robbery he did not commit, a Pretoria man is now claiming more than R8.5 million from Justice Minister Michael Masutha and the National Director of Public Prosecutions.
David Sithole, 34, of Nellmapius, said in papers before the High Court in Pretoria that he had to spend seven years, two months and 17 days in custody, knowing he was innocent.
He said he was wrongly convicted on November 20, 2002, on a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances and sentenced to 15 years in jail by a regional court magistrate.
He appealed his conviction and sentence, but two judges of the high court dismissed the appeal in July 2006.
Sithole received leave to appeal his conviction and sentence five years later and in 2013 the Supreme Court of Appeal set aside his conviction and sentence.
He said the NDPP was liable for his damages as it decided to prosecute him while he was innocent. He added that the prosecution insisted that he was guilty, even on appeal to the Appeal Court in Bloemfontein.
According to Sithole, there was no reason for the State to presume his guilt as there wasn’t sufficient evidence against him.
He said the State acted maliciously by not conceding during the appeals that he was perhaps innocent and wrongly convicted.
Sithole said apart from his liberty taken from him, his dignity had suffered for almost eight years as he was labelled a robber.
He is claiming R2.8m for the deprivation of his liberty, R2m for his impaired dignity, R182 140 for loss of income, as he earned R70 a day as a temporary worker before his arrest and R2.5m for future loss of income.
The State, in defending the claim, simply offered a blank denial of all the allegations.
Pretoria News