Faizel Patel – 23/06/2020

(Twitter: @FaizelPatel143)

AfriForum says it is going to assist Botswana in a high-profile money-laundering and fraud case involving huge sums of cash, allegedly funnelled into South African bank accounts.

Botswana’s director of public prosecutions, advocate Stephen Tiroyakgosi, submitted a request for mutual legal assistance (MLA) in September last year to the International Relations Department (Dirco)

Head of AfriForum’s private prosecution unit, Gerrie Nel says there had been no response to this request since then.

“They delivered it to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation. They’ve engaged with officials at the Department of Justice, with officials at the NPA and nothing happened. So they feel that the South African government has an obligation to deal with this kind of application and they should just do so. I feel exactly the same.”

Nel says there are some high profile people involved in the money laundering case.

“The one name I can mention because that’s all over the media is Mrs Bridget Motsepe-Radebe. Her name came to fore in November when there was a bail application in the Broadhurst Magistrates Court in Botswana.”

Nel says the money originating from the Bank of Botswana was illegally laundered through various international accounts, and US$48m (about R828m at  found its way into various accounts in South Africa.

Listen to the interview with Gerrie Nel