Wanted: Enlightened Christian Gathering Church leader Shepherd Bushiri and his wife Mary. Bushiri, who fled the country in 2020 with Mary, allegedly raped girls in his congregation. Photo: Veli Nhlapo/Sowetan/Gallo Images
The justice department this week confirmed receiving an investigative report detailing how two prosecutors “delayed justice” over rape charges against self-proclaimed prophet Shepherd Bushiri, adding that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was best placed to deal with the alleged misconduct.
Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for the justice and correctional services ministry, confirmed that the July 2020 report by Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation (DPCI or the Hawks) Judge Frans Kgomo, implicating state advocates Adina van Deventer and Alicia Roos in stalling the arrest of Bushiri on rape and human trafficking charges, mentions that NPA head Shamila Batohi was furnished with a copy.
Twice the NPA denied that Batohi received the report.
However, Phiri told the M&G this week that the report the NPA is denying had already been submitted formally to Batohi, “therefore the ministry did not re-submit it to the NPA, as the NPA already had a copy thereof.”
“In view of the independence of the NPA, the Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola (and officials of the ministry) has no authority or power to interfere in decisions made by the NDPP and therefore any enquiries regarding the prosecutors’ conduct has to be directed to the NDPP.”
Phiri’s comments come after the Mail & Guardian reported how the NPA was unwilling to pursue the rape charges against Bushiri, who together with his wife faced separate R102 million fraud charges, for fear of appearing to harass him.
Kgomo’s report said Van Deventer and Roos stalled in issuing warrants of arrest for Bushiri after the Hawks, from October 2015 to February 2019, found that he preyed on underage girls attending his Enlightened Christian Gathering church.
They allegedly also “blocked” the lead officer in the rape and human trafficking investigation from arresting Bushiri, who subsequently fled South Africa to his home country Malawi in November 2020 after being granted bail in the fraud case.
Kgomo’s investigation into Van Deventer and Roos followed a complaint from the father of two teenage siblings who were allegedly raped by Bushiri on separate occasions in June 2018.
Kgomo found that the father had “a genuine cause of complaint” about delayed justice in the matter and said he had given the report to Batohi to highlight Van Deventer and Roos’s “deeply troubling” conduct.
Despite Phiri’s confirmation that Kgomo stated that he furnished Batohi with the July 2020 report, NPA chief communications director Bulelwa Makeke said on Wednesday that the authority was “not in receipt of the report”.
“The office of the NDPP has no record of receipt of the said report and it remains to be confirmed where or how this report was submitted. The NPA, having had no sight of such misconduct allegations against the prosecutors or a report to that effect, could not have conducted such [an] investigation as would have been required,” Makeke said.
She said the NPA supported the decisions of Van Deventer and Roos not to charge Bushiri before he fled the country, adding that the prosecutors displayed the “correct principles and standard of prosecutor-guided investigations to ensure that the state has a formidable case to prosecute in a criminal trial”.
“Further, the state is continuing to engage with the Malawian authorities in order to facilitate the execution of the request for the extradition of the Bushiris, to ensure that they face justice.”
This week Phiri confirmed that the justice department had received an email in November 2020 from the father of the siblings.
“Furthermore, in the week or so after the email, arrest warrants for rape were indeed issued against Shepherd Bushiri. This was in the same week that the Bushiris fled the country in contravention of their bail conditions,” he said.
“The department of justice and constitutional development has worked tirelessly on the extradition process in order to ensure that the Bushiris face the full might of the law in our courts.”
On 30 March, the justice department released an update on its attempts to try to have Bushiri and his wife sent back to South Africa.
It said Malawi’s high court had ordered the South African officials to attend the extradition hearings, and that South Africa’s justice department was working on the matter.
The Hawks had multiple legs in its investigation into Bushiri, including rape, human trafficking, fraud, money laundering, defeating the ends of justice and contravening the Immigration Act.
Notes seen by the M&G show that days before the Bushiris fled, the Hawks’ Lieutenant Colonel Phumla Mrwebi met Van Deventer and Roos for warrants of arrest to be issued for the alleged rapes.
But, according to the notes, Van Deventer and Roos said they would not pursue this particular case against Bushiri because it “will look as if we are harassing him”. The NPA has not responded to the M&G’s questions relating to that meeting.