Africa-Press – South-Africa. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) says it had withdrawn the case against 52 people accused of holding two minsters hostage last year as neither their identities nor individual acts could be proven.
To compound this, some of those held hostage were also not keen to proceed with the case.
The group had been accused of holding ministers Thandi Modise, Mondli Gungubele and deputy minister Thabang Makwetla hostage last October for close to three hours.
The NPA on Tuesday withdrew the case against the 52 accused without offering much explanation for the move.
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“The State is of the view that there is no prima facie case because neither the identity nor the individual acts committed by each individual accused can be proven,” it said in a statement.
The NPA also cited the manner in which the arrest was conducted, saying it “also complicated identification as everyone on the scene was arrested except for the hostages”.
“A process of elimination was then used to establish who were the attendees and or employees of the hotel and who were the actual captors of the alleged hostage victims. After that process, the police released some of the people who could not be linked before they even appeared in court.
“The accused now before the court cannot be linked to the offence for the reasons stated,” reads the statement.
Case against military vets who allegedly held ministers hostage withdrawn
Yet another reason advanced for the withdrawal was that some complainants were also reluctant to proceed with the matter and sympathised with the accused.
“In their statements, some indicated that they joined in the singing and dancing in the room together with the veterans. One witness said in his statement that there was never a hostile environment in the room. Witnesses were unable to identify who performed what act at the scene,” the statement says.
News24 reported that a deal had been brokered by the ANC, but that it had left the likes of Makwetla baffled as to what had led to the withdrawal. He and the two ministers had submitted affidavits detailing their ordeal.
Initially, there were 53 accused, but one has since died.
The arrested veterans were facing 27 charges: one count of conspiracy to kidnap and 26 counts of kidnapping.
All arrested veterans had been released on bail, and given that the case would not be going ahead, the NPA confirmed that they would be reimbursed.
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