Pastor Shepherd Bushiri. Photo: Supplied
Two top National Prosecting Authority (NPA) advocates have been implicated in actively and successfully thwarting attempts to arrest rape and human trafficking accused Shepherd Bushiri before he fled South Africa.
An investigative report, which the Mail & Guardian has seen, shows how NPA prosecutors Adina van Deventer and Alicia Roos failed to prosecute the self-proclaimed prophet for the alleged rape and trafficking of underage girls.
After the report came an affidavit from the lead investigator who was probing the fugitive, detailing how, at every turn, she was blocked from arresting Bushiri by Van Deventer and Roos.
Both are facing a wider corruption and defeating the ends of justice investigation for allegedly protecting Bushiri and his close associates from facing criminal charges of rape and human trafficking.
The report by Judge Frans Kgomo called Van Deventer’s apparent delays “deeply troubling”. The judge said he had given the report to NPA head Shamila Batohi “to take cognisance of the involvement of advocate Adina van Deventer [and Roos] in this complaint”.
Both advocates are still on the NPA payroll. The NPA has not answered questions sent by the M&G.
In June 2018, a father of two girls found out Bushiri had allegedly raped his daughters, who were then teenagers. He reported the matter to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), also known as the Hawks, and statements were taken.
The investigation was completed and the NPA was to make a decision on prosecution but stalled.
After numerous attempts to find out how the case was proceeding, the father lodged a complaint with Kgomo’s office, which is tasked with overseeing the Hawks. In July 2020, Kgomo released an interim report, finding that the father had “a genuine cause of complaint” about delayed justice after “two years [had] elapsed since the rape cases were reported”.
National director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi. (Photo by Gallo Images / Sunday Times / Alaister Russell)
The complainant, whose identity has been concealed to protect the alleged victims, had assisted his minor daughters, who are now in their early twenties, to open the rape cases.
When contacted by the M&G, the father confirmed that he had complained to the DPCI judge and received a finding in his favour.
However, the father said the South African criminal justice system was “corrupt”, as it had allowed Bushiri’s November 2020 escape from South Africa, and declined to comment further.
Bushiri, a Malawian citizen whose real name is Chipiliro Gama, according to police investigative notes, fled the country shortly after he and his wife were released on R200 000 bail each by the Pretoria magistrate’s court. They had been arrested on fraud and money laundering charges involving more than R100 million.
At the time of Bushiri’s escape, Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi blamed the country’s “porous borders”, adding that the fugitive had operated in South Africa for many years with 10 passports and various aliases.
In an affidavit to DPCI judge Kgomo, Lieutenant Colonel Phumla Mrwebi, who was the lead officer in the rape and human trafficking leg of the Hawks’s Bushiri investigation, accused Van Deventer and Roos of “blocking” the arrest of Bushiri since February 2019, when she had completed her investigation.
Mrwebi’s statement comes after Kgomo stated in his report that the file on both NPA prosecutors remained open.
Mrwebi declined to comment.
(John McCann/M&G)
Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Nomthandazo Mbambo confirmed this week that the unit was aware of the investigation into Van Deventer and Roos but that the Hawks “shall not comment on that”.
According to internal documents, the Hawks began its Bushiri probe in October 2015.
The M&G has seen a May 2020 report from the biology section of the police’s forensic science laboratory in Cape Town, which found that Bushiri used concentrations of human parts to make his so-called anointing oils, which are promoted as performing “miracles” for users, and which sell for R175. The report forms part of the investigation.
According to Mrwebi’s affidavit, the Hawks, during its probe, unearthed shocking evidence of “human trafficking and rape of young girls, from ages of 17 to 21, from [Bushiri’s Enlightened Christian Gathering] church”.
“Twenty-five witnesses, including victims, were interviewed and their statements were obtained. The victims explained in their statements how they were lured to Sheraton Hotel [in Pretoria] by prophet Shepherd Bushiri and his sons (church runners) under the pretence that he was going to pray and assist them financially,” Mrwebi stated.
“After the rape, sexual abuse [or] exploitation, the victims were given an amount from R5 000 to R25 000 to silence them. Some of the victims were threatened to be killed if they disclosed what had happened between them and the prophet.”
She added that, after completing her probe in February 2019, she struggled to receive feedback from Van Deventer and Roos.
“In the month of August 2019, I sent the warrants of arrest [for rape and trafficking charges] to the prosecutors (Van Deventer and Roos) to arrest Bushiri in court as he was going to appear in October 2019 [on fraud and money laundering].
“But, on that day (in October 2019), [Bushiri] never arrived at court because he appeared virtually. It is clear that this move was to block me from arresting him,” Mrwebi alleged.
“After that, [Van Deventer and Roos] never communicated with me until Bushiri escaped.”
Mrwebi’s contention that she was “blocked” by the NPA prosecutors in her Bushiri probe is supported by the DPCI judge’s July 2020 report.
It detailed Van Deventer’s apparent delaying tactics after the prosecutor asked Mrwebi for a progress report on a matter related to an alleged rape victim suffering from a mental health condition.
Mrwebi, in an email to Van Deventer that was quoted in Kgomo’s report, said she had told the NPA “several times” that the alleged victim with a mental health condition did not want to be part of the case anymore after her father was supposedly given employment by Bushiri, who also apparently paid for his alleged victim’s tertiary education.
Kgomo, reacting to Mrwebi’s email, which he had put in bold in the report, called Van Deventer’s alleged delays in dealing with the Hawks’s complainants “deeply troubling”.
Mrwebi, in her affidavit to the DPCI judge, further accused the two prosecutors of “stealing” a December 2020 case docket and blocking the charging of Bushiri’s lawyers, including Terrance Baloyi, for defeating the ends of justice, after Bushiri’s November 2020 escape.
Van Deventer and Roos, in March 2021, allegedly blocked the enrolment of the charges against Baloyi and other Bushiri associates at the Pretoria magistrate’s court, with Van Deventer quoted as saying “she gave instructions to the senior [court] prosecutor not to enrol the case”.
[/membership]