Africa-Press – South-Africa. Disgraced lawyer Seth Nthai will have to wait about two weeks to find out whether he has succeeded in his attempt to have corruption charges against him dropped.
Nthai made a brief appearance in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Friday after making representations on this to National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi on Thursday.
However, State advocate Anna-Marie Morton said Nthai should have made his representations to the regional head of the Specialised Commercial Crimes Unit, advocate Gideon Nkoana.
And, if he is unhappy with Nkoana’s decision, he can approach Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions Andrew Chauke before making representations to Batohi.
Morton said she expected Nkoana to communicate his decision in two weeks.
She added:
While Nthai’s legal representative wanted the matter to be postponed until October, Acting Judge William Karam disagreed, saying the matter was already at a pre-trial stage.
Karam postponed the matter to 15 June to “ascertain whether an outcome for the representations has been received or not” .
If the matter goes to trial, the State will call two witnesses.
Corruption case against former advocate Seth Nthai postponed to next month
Nthai, who was stripped of his advocate title by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in 2020, is out on R5 000 bail.
The corruption case is related to allegations that Nthai attempted to solicit a R5 million bribe in 2009 from Italian businesses, which had been locked in a mining rights dispute with the South African government.
In 2020, the SCA overturned Nthai’s readmission to the Bar – and referred its ruling to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to consider possible criminal charges, News24 reported.
In its ruling, the SCA said:
The appeal court then dismissed the Limpopo High Court’s ruling that depression and anxiety could explain Nthai’s attempt to solicit the R5 million bribe.
It said there was insufficient psychiatric evidence to support such a finding.
“The anxiety and depression, such as it is, hardly explain his clear, goal-directed behaviour over a protracted period, nor can it mitigate the dishonesty.”
News24 previously reported that recordings of showed that Nthai not only promised to make the mining dispute case go away if the Italian businesses paid the bribe into a foreign account, but also disclosed key aspects of the government’s strategy in fighting the case.
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He even flew to Italy at his own expense to secure the bribe. He also agreed with the racist assertion of an Italian businessman that this kind of corruption was “more African”.
The SCA said: “It is difficult to imagine a more egregious transgression of the norms of professional conduct.
“This was no mere casual or momentary lapse of judgement. It was carefully calculated and zealously pursued. When the several meetings in this country failed to bear fruit, Mr Nthai travelled to Italy for the express purpose of nailing down an agreement.”
Last year, the Constitutional Court dismissed Nthai’s application to appeal the SCA ruling.
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