Three people, two of them serving African National Congress MPs, have been added to the list of 21 Travelgate accused who will go on trial in the Cape High Court in July.
A fourth name, that of ANC Western Cape MP Bruce Kannemeyer, will be added at a court appearance on February 16, Scorpions prosecutor Jannie van Vuuren told a Cape Town magistrate on Tuesday.
The three new names are Maxwell Moss, Lewele Modisenyane and former MP Angie Molebatsi.
They and their co-accused, all of them current or former MPs, are accused of cheating Parliament by fraudulent use of travel vouchers to the value of about R24-million.
Van Vuuren told magistrate Hennie le Roux that the massive four-volume forensic report has been completed and handed over to the three defence teams.
They have also been given a DVD of the documents that will be used as evidence — a collection that advocate Seth Nthai, who is appearing for the ANC members, said amounts to about 250 lever-arch files when printed out.
Le Roux granted Van Vuuren’s request that the matter be formally transferred to the high court for trial, and warned the accused to be there at 10am on July 31.
Moss, who is confined to a motorised wheelchair, was unable to enter the courtroom because a wooden partition just inside the doorway made the entrance too narrow.
He sat in the wheelchair in the doorway during the proceedings, and at one stage a co-accused, Craig Morkel, was relaying the magistrate’s questions to him.
Nthai told the magistrate: ”It’s just an embarrassment that at this time we still have courts that are not friendly to people with disabilities.” — Sapa