NPA escalates fight to get Magashule's ex-PA Cholota back in the dock to SCA
Moroadi Cholota was among a dozen high-profile figures facing corruption and fraud charges in a botched R255 million contract.
Fraud and corruption-accused Moroadi Cholota appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrates Court on 12 August 2024. Picture: Xanderleigh Dookey Makhaza/EWN
JOHANNESBURG - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has escalated its fight to get former Free State Premier Ace Magashule’s ex-assistant, Moroadi Cholota, back in the dock to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
This is after the Bloemfontein High Court dismissed the State’s application for leave to appeal a judgment that saw Cholota walk free on a technicality in June.
Cholota was among a dozen high-profile figures facing corruption and fraud charges in a botched R255 million contract.
Last month, the NPA suffered a massive blow in the asbestos trial-within-a-trial, after the court ruled that Cholota’s extradition from the US was unlawful and unconstitutional.
She claimed that State prosecutors and Hawks investigators in the matter based the extradition application on falsehoods, intentionally misleading US authorities in the effort to haul her back to South Africa.
The court also ruled that only the justice minister could spearhead an extradition process and not the NPA, as was the case in Cholota’s matter.
As a key figure in the State’s case against Magashule, the NPA challenged the court’s decision, but the court dismissed the NPA’s application for leave to appeal.
The NPA said it believes that Judge Phillip Loubster erred in his dismissal of the application, adding that there were compelling reasons for the SCA to hear its appeal.
The main trial against Magashule, businessman Edwin Sodi and a dozen others is set to continue in January next year.