Pretoria - A trial date for the co-accused in the R102 million fraud case involving the leader of the Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) Church, self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary has finally been set to proceed in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
This after Landiwe Ntlokwana, Nomalarvasagie Reddy, Sateesh Isseri, as well as Stephanie Olivier, appeared briefly in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court earlier today.
The matter appeared and stood down to afford the legal counsels for the accused to deliberate over a suitable trial date for the case to proceed in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
Following the brief adjournment, legal counsels were able to agree on a date for later on in the year during November for the trial to begin.
The latter came as a welcome decision as the legal counsels of the accused in October, raised concerns about the sluggish pace of the case following a request by the state for a postponement of the matter for further investigations.
At the time, a request was made for the matter to be struck off the roll, however, the state was given a reprieve and given until January 2023 in order for the police to complete their investigations.
When the case returned in January the state informed the court that investigations were complete and that they were ready for the matter to be transferred to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria for trial sans the self-proclaimed leader and his wife Mary.
The co-accused are facing charges of fraud, theft, and money laundering which took place between 2017 to 2019 involving Bushiri and his wife, to the tune of over R106 million.
The Bushiri duo fled South Africa after they were granted R200 000 bail each in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court in 2020.
Shortly after his escape, Bushiri explained through a formal statement, that he and his wife were in Malawi temporarily due to security issues they had dating back from 2015, which had gotten worse since their release on bail.
The ECG leader claimed there had been clear and evident attempts to have his family killed despite several attempts by him to report the matter to the authorities such as the Independent Police Investigative Directorate in South Africa or any state protection offered to them.
And despite his insistence that they were not evading their trial, no attempts have been made by the couple to leave their home country of Malawi since their escape.
Even with the progress of the case, it has been reported that a call for the state prosecutor in the matter to come clean about the real details of the case was made by a Johannesburg-based NGO Right to Justice.
The organisation according to The Star had written to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Independent Police Investigative Directorate to complain about the case, especially as the National Prosecuting Authority did not have the location of Bushiri, nor making attempts to extradite the couple from Malawi to stand trial.
The organisation cited this in light of the efforts made in having Facebook rapist Thabo Bester and his lover Dr Nandipha Magudumana extradited from Tanzania following their escape from the country.
The fraud case will commence on November 20 in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
Pretoria News