Former magistrate and co-accused back in court

Some progress has finally been made in the seven-year-long court case against Ronnie Rambau, the former senior regional magistrate from Louis Trichardt, who stands accused of accepting a bribe to influence a court case.

Rambau appeared in the Messina Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 1 August, together with his co-accused, ex-prosecutor Estene Willemse and attorney Tivoneleni Edmond Lubisi.

The trio made headlines in February 2010 when Rambau was arrested during a police trap. The main charges brought against them include corruption and conspiracy to commit corruption.

The trap was set within the Musina area, with the aim of catching corrupt officials who sabotaged the course of justice by pre-determining the sentence of vehicle theft cases by means of a plea agreement. The three accused allegedly also received bribe money in murder and rape cases.

Two years after their trial started, the State closed their case against the three men in 2012. It was then that the three accused started with a series of applications that would see their case drag on for the next five years to come.

First, the three brought an application to have the criminal cases against them dismissed on 14 October 2012. They claimed that the State’s evidence and witnesses were lacking in credibility. Claims were also made in the application that police agents used in the trap had gone “beyond the mere creating of an opportunity” and “obtained information in an unlawful and intentional” way. Their defence was that the “voluntariness is diminished as the agent facilitated and persuaded the target.”

In their defence, they also argued that the police had not adhered to surveillance law and infringed on the three men’s rights at the time of their arrest, rendering everything that they might have said or anything that was found in their possession null and void. Willemse’s attorney proclaimed that the R2 000 that was allegedly found in his possession, according to the State’s evidence, was not bribe money but in fact whiskey money.

Rambau and Lubisi, at a previous court appearance, offered an explanation for the money exchanged between them.  According to the two, the money that was found in their possession was money that Lubisi had paid to Rambau for a vehicle that Lubisi had bought from him.

Following this unsuccessful application, Rambau himself brought another application to have the presiding magistrate withdraw from the case. He claimed that the magistrate, E K Patterson, had befriended some of the state witnesses and that this could have a negative influence on the outcome of his trial.

When this first application was dismissed, Rambau turned to both the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeals, who also dismissed his application to have the magistrate withdraw from the case. Rambau then appealed to the Constitutional Court with the same application, which also dismissed his application. With all his options exhausted, Rambau was forced to return to the Messina court and continue with the case.

Lubisi and Willemse had already testified during previous court appearances, with Willemse making use of his right to remain silent.

During his last court appearance, Rambau’s testimony was finalized, whereafter he indicated that he still wanted to call two more witnesses to testify on his behalf. One of his witnesses, however, could not be called immediately because of bad health.

The case was then postponed until 19 October in the hope that Rambau’s witness will be in better health and able to testify before court.

Date:19 August 2017

By: Isabel Venter

Isabel joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2009 as a reporter. She holds a BA Degree in Communication Sciences from the University of South Africa. Her beat is mainly crime and court reporting.

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