The drug-trafficking trial of Sheryl Cwele — the wife State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele — and her co-accused, Nigerian national Frank Nabolisa, started late on Monday at the Pietermaritzburg High Court, with the state calling a Brazilian chemical expert, Carolina Braga, as a witness.
Braga, who has a master’s degree in chemical engineering, has tested chemical substances for the Brazilian Federal Police and the army for the past six years.
Prosecutor Ian Cooke began the morning by asking Braga to outline the procedure used by Brazilian authorities to test substances in the event of an arrest where there is a suspicion that they may illegal or banned.
Braga testified that two packages of roughly around 9kg and 1kg were found on the person of Tessa Beetge when she was arrested in Brazil in June 2008 and that these had been tested.
Cwele faces, together with her co-accused, one count of dealing in dangerous dependence-creating drugs or conspiring to do so, and two counts of incitement to dealing in dangerous dependence-creating drugs. The latter related to allegedly recruiting Beetge and Charmaine Moss, another state witness, to traffic cocaine.
The trial continues.