Will he face the music? Won’t he? The Richard Mdluli tennis match continues going back and forth, with the news that the fraud, corruption and money-laundering charges against him are to be reinstated by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). For finally making some forward motion on the case, which has dragged on for far too long, the NPA is our hero of the week.
The NPA confirmed on Friday that it will reinstate charges against the suspended police crime intelligence head, as well as Colonel Heine Barnard, a senior finance officer for Crime Intelligence. Mdluli and Barnard are due to appear in the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court on 1 April, according to newspaper reports.
For years the tenacious Mdluli has done his utmost to avoid answering to around 18 criminal charges – but it seems that he has managed only to postpone some of them.
In September 2013, Judge John Murphy ruled in the Pretoria High Court that the various criminal charges against Mdluli, which had been withdrawn in 2011, must be reinstated by the national director of public prosecutions and that national police commissioner Riah Phiyega must proceed with the disciplinary case that had also been aborted. The charges included murder, intimidation, money-laundering and fraud.
Mdluli and the NPA were given leave to appeal against Murphy’s decision. In April 2014 the Supreme Court ruled that the corruption and fraud charges against Mdluli – which are related to alleged misuse of a crime intelligence fund – must be reinstated. However, it made no ruling on the murder charge, relating to the 1999 death of Oupa Ramogibe.
The original case was brought in May 2012 by lobby group Freedom Under Law (FUL) against Mdluli, the NPA and four other respondents. FUL challenged the decisions taken by the NPA, the NDPP and the SAPS to withdraw various criminal and disciplinary charges against Mdluli, including the withdrawal of corruption charges.
In June 2012 Corruption Watch, together with Social Justice Coalition, sought to intervene as co-applicants in the FUL case. The two co-applicants later withdrew their application, fearing that it would cause delays. “It is in the interests of justice that the matter be adjudicated as soon as possible,” said Corruption Watch executive director David Lewis at the time.
