Africa-Press – Lesotho. CHIEF Justice Sakoane Sakoane took a swipe at the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) for the delay of high-profile cases. Justice Sakoane was speaking at the official opening of the High Court yesterday.
“The difficulty in the so-called high profile cases speedy disposal is that some of them are assigned to a special prosecutor who could only prosecute one case at a given time before a particular judge,” Justice Sakoane said.
He said the high profile cases such as the ones involving former army boss Lieutenant General Tlali Kamoli and others “the DPP has hired only one prosecutor to handle them”.
The DPP has appointed Advocate Shaun Abrahams, a South African lawyer, to prosecute six high-profile cases involving soldiers accused of murders, attempted murder, treason and malicious damage to property.
The Chief Justice appeared to insinuate that the DPP had given Advocate Abrahams more than he can chew. This, Justice Sakoane said, makes it difficult to set down a case for a longer period before one presiding judge.
Hearing these cases on a rotational basis does not only delay their completion but it is costly both to the crown and the accused.
He said some of the long-running cases might be compromised when key witnesses die. Justice Sakoane said the delays could have been avoided if the Speedy Trial Act 2002 were strictly observed at the start of the cases.
He said following the recruitment of 11 more judges they have resuscitated the criminal session rolls in line with section 11 (2) of the High Court Act, 1978.
Justice Sakoane said there will be three judges on the session roll to exclusively deal with criminal trials and the judges will be allocated cases on a rotational basis from session to session.
He said this will help to urgently deal with murder and corruption cases. “We call upon the prosecution to do its duty of bringing all witnesses to court so that no case is postponed on account of the unavailability of witnesses.
This month marks five years and four months after Lt Gen Kamoli was arrested and detained at the Maseru Central Prison without trial.
His other co-accused facing several charges ranging from murder, attempted murder, treason, malicious damage to property were arrested and remanded at the Maseru Central Prison around the same time.
Lt Gen Kamoli and his co-accused told the court in one of their applications for speedy hearing of their cases that “local judges informed us that our cases are regarded as high profile.
we would not be tried unless and until that task of adjudication would be carried out by foreign judges”.
They complained in the court papers that their cases were delayed because they “had to wait for the government to appoint foreign judges”. It took more than a year for the government to recruit judges to hear the high-profile cases.
It took about eight months for the DPP to hire a special prosecutor, Advocate Shaun Abrahams. Having been arrested between August and October 2017 the soldiers were only told in early 2018 after the annual celebration of the opening of the High Court that they were awaiting the appointment of foreign judges.
They were remanded without a trial date until January 2019 when they first appeared before Justice Charles Hungwe, a Zimbabwean judge hired to handle high-profile cases. The other two judges hired together with Justice Hungwe have since resigned, further delaying the cases.
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