Pretoria - For more than a decade, former investigating director of the then Scorpions, Malala Geophrey Ledwaba, had criminal charges hanging over his head.
While maintaining his innocence over the years, he has now finally been cleared of all charges.
In 2018, Ledwaba was cleared on appeal on charges of fraud and theft of money from the Scorpions’ confidential fund, earmarked to pay for special operations and for informants.
While his 10-year jail sentence was at the time overturned as he was found to be innocent, it was not all over for Ledwaba. He still faced obstruction of justice and corruption charges linked to a so-called bribe he was accused of offering to a prosecutor not to proceed with his earlier fraud and theft trial.
He appeared in the Johannesburg Regional Court on these charges, but he and his co-accused Elvis Manyama, were last week also acquitted of these charges.
The prosecution claimed that while still facing his fraud and theft case in 2012, Ledwaba sent his employee, Manyama, to deposit R10 000 into the bank account belonging to Willem Johannes van Zyl, a senior State advocate at Pretoria’s Specialised Crime Court.
At the time, Van Zyl was one of three prosecutors who handled Ledwaba’s earlier case, in which he was vindicated in 2018.
It was alleged that Ledwaba tried to bribe the prosecutor. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) claimed that Manyama had received R10 000 from Ledwaba and deposited it into Van Zyl's Absa account.
When interviewed by the investigating officer at the time, Manyama, however, denied that he received the alleged bribe from Ledwaba.
It was claimed that the deposit into Van Zyl’s account was made a few days before Ledwaba’s trial was set to begin. The State had claimed that a day after the payment was made into the prosecutor’s account, Ledwaba called the NPA’s anti-corruption hotline and falsely reported that Van Zyl was involved in acts of corruption.
A voice expert, who died during the trial, matched the voice to that of Ledwaba. The prosecution obtained the opinion of another voice expert, who maintained that the voice recorded on the anti-corruption hotline was definitely not Ledwaba’s.
The State also called about eight witnesses during the trial, but the court last week acquitted both Ledwaba and his co-accused due to a lack of evidence against them.
Ledwaba told the Pretoria News he was happy it was all over. “I am tired of the NPA mess. I want to get on with my life together with my family, and I want to get all of this out of my system,” he said.
It was a long and difficult road for Ledwaba, who had criminal charges hanging over his head when he was initially arrested.
Ledwaba, a former advocate, was in October 2006 arrested alongside Ayanda Dlodlo, former minister of Home Affairs. She was at the time a special director in the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions).
The theft charge in this regard brought against Dlodlo was at the time withdrawn, but Ledwaba had to face 15 charges in the Commercial Crimes Court in Pretoria.
He was in 2014 convicted on two fraud and three theft charges. He was the following year sentenced to an effective 10-year jail term, which was later overturned on appeal.
Pretoria News