Cape Town – A former Hawks police captain who demanded R500 from a victim of the so-called “black dollar scam”, was refused permission to appeal his 10-year prison sentence on Friday.
Siyaza Patrick Siyale appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Friday, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
He was sentenced in April to six years on a charge of extortion, two for theft and two for defeating the administration of justice.
The magistrate ruled that the grounds advanced for permission for him to appeal were not sound.
The main grounds was that the sentence was so severe in the circumstances, as to induce a sense of shock.
She said the defence had failed to study the entire record of the case.
She added that the grounds advanced for permission for Siyale to appeal both his convictions and sentences, were inadequate, and that the defence had failed to study the entire record of the case.
Siyale was attached to the Commercial Crime Unit in Cape Town.
His partner in commercial crime investigations, Wilfred Mentoor, 30, a detective constable, was effectively jailed for eight months only, after which he will be released into correctional supervision involving house arrest, as suggested by his then legal aid defence lawyer, Hayley Lawrence.
The case was a sequel to the involvement of victim Nicodemus Solly Moeng, in the black dollar scam in August 2011.
At the time, Moeng was the president of the French South Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
A bogus Congolese investor, David Kilato, had duped Moeng into parting with R300,000 for a “lucrative investment”.
Moeng received four small lock-up safes, supposedly filled with US dollars, but in fact containing black pieces of paper cut to the size of US dollars.
On his way home with the safes, Moeng was intercepted by Siyale and Mentoor, who accused Moeng of involvement in the scam.
Siyale demanded money in order not to arrest him.
At Moeng’s home, they confiscated the safes, a camera and a book, and Siyale removed R400 from Moeng’s wallet, to “split” with Mentoor.
Moeng reported the incident, and an undercover police “sting” was set up to trap Siyale.
In the course of the trap, Siyale accepted R500 from Moeng at a take-away restaurant, and was arrested.
Prosecutor Denzyl Combrink contended that it was not in the interests of justice for the court to grant Siyale permission to appeal.
ANA