The 19 current and former African National Congress MPs in the Travelgate case are to ask the national director of public prosecutions to drop the charges against them, their lawyer said on Thursday.
Advocate Seth Nthai told Cape Town magistrate Hennie le Roux that the MPs’ legal team will be approaching National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli after plea-bargain negotiations with the Scorpions reached a dead end.
A total of 20 MPs and former MPs, plus five travel agents, appeared before Le Roux, who postponed the case to September 12.
If Pikoli has decided by then to press ahead with the case, it is likely that the defence teams will on that date argue against a bid by the state to join into one what are currently five different cases.
It had been expected that the joinder would be argued on Thursday, but Nthai said the postponement had been at the ANC team’s request, and was being done by agreement with the prosecutor, Jannie van Vuuren.
Hopefully, the national director of public prosecutions will have made his decision by then, he said.
He said attempts to reach further plea-bargain agreements — several MPs have already concluded pleas — will be fruitless.
”We can’t agree. We can’t find each other,” he told Le Roux.
Three current and former Democratic Alliance MPs are also facing charges.
Responding to defence requests for more information on the charges, Van Vuuren said that in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act he was only obliged to supply the accused with an indictment, a list of witnesses and a summary of facts when he made a formal application for the matter to be transferred to the High Court.
July 31 next year has been set as a provisional trial date.
Le Roux issued a pro forma warrant of arrest for one of the travel agents, Sorayah Beukes, after being told by Van Vuuren she was in hospital, ordering that it be held over until September 12.
Beukes is on R100 000 bail.
He also issued warrants for two of the politicians who were not present in court, again ordering they be held over.
The senior counsel who defended Schabir Shaik in his fraud and corruption trial, Francois van Zyl, has been hired to represent one of the travel agents, Estelle Aggujaro. — Sapa