Charges against a company in the R54 million police software case involving Khomotso Phahlane have been withdrawn, while the company’s director remains individually accused.
A government court report published on 10 November, citing a police statement, says the new prosecution team learned that the entity had ceased to exist. The report does not name the company in its explanation of the withdrawal.
The trial in the High Court in Pretoria was postponed to Thursday, 12 November. The withdrawal concerns the entity; it does not mean that the individual accused were acquitted or that the case against them has ended.
Former acting national police commissioner Phahlane and five co-accused face charges including fraud, corruption, theft and contraventions of the Public Finance Management Act, relating to two contracts worth approximately R54 million.
The contracts concern the alleged irregular procurement of RIPJAR monitoring software and Daedalus communication-encryption software. The allegations remain matters for the court; the update reports no finding of guilt.
EBNewsDaily previously reported the postponement. The new official account explains the entity-charge withdrawal behind the delay.
Archive photograph of the South African flag, taken on 31 October 2008; not a court appearance or a depiction of any accused person. Photo: Chris Eason / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_South_Africa.jpg . Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ . Cropped and resized for display.
