By: Carl Mpangazitha Niehaus*
Personally I obviously welcome the ruling of the magistrate in the farcical, and politically motivated, ‘COVID-19 regulations’ case against me; but this goes beyond the personal, and it should also be welcomed by all South Africans, who believe in justice and the rule of law.
In her ruling of outright dismissal of the charges, in terms of Section 174 of the Criminal Procedures Act, the presiding magistrate was damning in her assessment that the State had failed dismally to prove any case whatsoever against me.
The magistrate also pointed out that on the same day (8 June 2021) when I was arrested, the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola, addressed a crowd that gathered outside the Estcourt prison, and that no action was taken against him, nor against any of the people who gathered there.
In doing so the Magistrate confirmed, what was evident for all of us and our nation at large to see, that my arrest and subsequent prosecution was malicious and wrongful, with the sole intent to embarrass me and to sully my reputation, driven by factional political intent.
My very public arrest, while I was doing a live interview with SABC TV News, was intended to deliberately humiliate me, and to send a message of intimidation and to instill fear in South Africans, not to speak out about the scandalous and illegal treatment that the judicial system continues to inflict in general on President Jacob Zuma, and specifically his illegal imprisonment by the Constitutional Court (CC).
In recent days we have seen this again in how the interpretation of President Zuma’s medical parole conditions by the Department of Correctional Services prevented him from even being present at a press conference of the Jacob G. Zuma Foundation, and participating as a special guest in my In My Crosshairs Twitter Space conversation.
Evidently the intention is to totally muzzle and silence President Zuma, and that has got absolutely nothing to do with justice, it has everything to do with intolerant factional politics, and the growing dictatorial character of the Ramaphosa regime.
It is important to re-emphasize that my presence at the Nkandla residence of President Zuma from the 2nd to the 4th of July 2021, and on the 8th of July 2021 at the Estcourt prison, was on the basis of explicit instructions that I was given by the NEC of MKMVA to travel to those locations, and to articulate the support of MKMVA for President Jacob Zuma.
I was officially sanctioned by the NEC of MKMVA to make the statements that I made in support of President Zuma throughout that period, and I dutifully never deviated from those instructions. As such I was therefore throughout on official duty, and on behalf of MKMVA carried out my duties as an MKMVA NEC member, and the National Spokesperson of MKMVA.
The manner in which the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) were abused to target me, and to victimize me with the intention to score cheap political points, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms. I am encouraged, and humbled, by the support that MKMVA and many fellow comrades give me in my decision to file charges of wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution against the State.
My family and myself suffered serious abuse of power, financial hardships, and public humiliation because of these maliciously fabricated charges. I am proceeding with singular determination to sue the State, and I have no doubt that I will succeed to bring a successful law suit.
I am grateful that advocate Dali Mpofu (SC) has agreed to join my already formidable legal team, of attorney Eric Mabuza and advocate Nthabiseng Mokoena. It is not in my nature to allow myself be abused and run over by bullying and injustice. Such abusive behavior by organs of the State cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, and must have the strongest possible punitive consequences.
The contrast between the unseemly haste that I was arrested on trumped-up charges, and the manner in which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) insisted on pressing ahead with a prosecution that was evidently baseless, stands in sharp contrast to the procrastination and feet-dragging that we are now witnessing from the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to charge Cyril Ramaphosa with clearly delineated, detailed and very serious, charges that have been brought against him with regards to the Phala Phala farm saga.
One must also ask the question why the Deputy Public Protector advocate, Kholela Gcakela, has gone so eerily silent on the letter with 32 questions that the Public Protector, advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, wrote to Ramaphosa? Is even the Deputy Public Protector now complicit in Ramaphosa’s suspension of advocate Mkhwebane as a deliberate act, in order to avoid him having to answer those damning questions?
These outrageous discrepancies of orchestrated action and inaction are not only true with regards to the abuse of State resources to deliberately target me, but is also evident in the manner that President Jacob Zuma had been harassed and targeted for a period of more than two decades, and the manner in which the Secretary General (SG) of the African National Congress (ANC), comrade Ace Magashule, continues to be arraigned in-front of the Bloemfontein High Court on the flimsiest of so-called ‘oversight’ charges.
These are only some of the most prominent examples in an array of such cases of abuse of our law enforcement agencies. It is evident that our law enforcement agencies, and legal system in general, are being abused for factional political targeting of specific persons who are perceived not to be cow-towing to the thuma mina dictatorship that is emerging under Ramaphosa’s corrupt and inept rule, where freedom of speech and expression is no longer allowed, and relentlessly punished.
The reality is that this is certainly not prosecution, it is selective persecution. Selective justice is an aberration of the law, and it is not justice at all!
I warmly welcome the courage of the magistrate who presided over my court case to have called my prosecution out for the utter farce that it was. It shows that fortunately there are still Officers of the Law who are principled, and who are resisting to be captured and refuse for their courts to be abused for factional political reasons. I sincerely thank her for being a shining example to her own Chief Justice, and other colleagues, who are seemingly hell-bent on destroying our legal system and our constitutional democracy.
As for myself, I will continue to resist all such abuse, and I will continue to work with all freedom loving South Africans who want to live in a free and just democratic society.
A LUTA CONTINUA!
*Ambassador Carl Niehaus is an ANC veteran of 42 years on uninterrupted ANC membership. He is a former member of the ANC NEC, and former SA ambassador to The Netherlands. He is an NEC member and National Spokesperson of MKMVA.
