Magashule asbestos ‘scam' trial adjourned as investigating officer falls ill
The asbestos' scam' case returned to the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein on Thursday.
The investigating officer is currently testifying in a trial-within-a-trial to determine a special plea from former Free State premier Ace Magashule's assistant.
However, Calitz has now fallen ill, so proceedings have been adjourned until next week.
The tender fraud case against former Free State premier Ace Magashule and 17 others over the asbestos removal scandal has been adjourned until next week.
The case returned to the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein on Thursday, when Investigating officer Captain Benjamin Calitz was expected to resume his testimony in a trial-within-a-trial to decide a special plea raised by Magashule's former assistant, Moroadi Cholota.
He indicated he was not feeling well on Wednesday, though, and on Thursday, prosecutor Tammy McPherson told the court that his doctor had booked him off.
'It has been communicated from his family members this morning that he is incredibly ill,' she added.
Judge Phillip Loubser said he had no choice but to adjourn the trial until Monday, 12 May.
The accused before court have been tied to a scheme that allegedly saw R255 million worth of work to eradicate asbestos roofing in poor homes across the Free State irregularly channelled to a joint venture involving Edwin Sodi's Blackhead Consulting in 2014.
This following an unsolicited proposal from the latter, and with the work tacked on to a pre-existing contract the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements had with Blackhead, which was due to terminate in just a few weeks.
Public officials allegedly scored big for looking the other way, with cash, electronics, travel and education among their spoils.
Special plea
Cholota was previously positioned as a State witness. But according to Calitz, she became uncooperative in late 2021 when he and his senior, General Nico Gerber, went to interview her in the United States.
At the time, she was on a scholarship as a political science and international relations student at the Bay Atlanta University in Washington, DC. She was then extradited and charged.
Cholota, for her part, however, has claimed her prosecution was punishment for not having implicated Magashule and that her extradition was unlawful. In her special plea, she argues the court does not have jurisdiction to try her case.
A transcript of the first day of her interview with the Hawks, which Magashule's counsel, advocate Laurance Hodes SC, had handed up as evidence on Wednesday, has become central to the special plea.
When the matter returns to court on Monday, an application by Hodes to cross-examine Calitz will be dealt with.
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