/ 22 October 2010

Bringing out drug mule ‘too risky’

Bringing Out Drug Mule 'too Risky'

Brazilian authorities were willing to send convicted drug mule Tessa Beetge to testify in person in the sensational drug trafficking trial of Sheryl Cwele and her co-accused Nigerian Frank Nabolisa, but South Africa rejected the offer because it had to guarantee that she would be returned to prison.

Senior state advocate Ian Cooke felt that South Africa could not risk it because she might disappear, or seek legal recourse to block her return, and create a diplomatic incident.

But Tumi Shai, Interpol’s spokesperson in South Africa, outlining the procedures for the international transfer of prisoners, said that Brazil could hand Beetge over to the South African police, who could arrest her and hold her in prison.

Beetge’s testimony is central to the state case. This week Piet Koen, presiding judge in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg, took the unusual step of warning that Beetge’s testimony might be crucial for a correct verdict. He asked if arrangements had been made for Beetge to be interviewed via a video link-up.

Cooke told the Mail & Guardian that no such arrangement had been made as, up to a week before the trial, he had been trying to arrange for Beetge to come out.

“I would love to have had her here but I’ve got to be practical. The Brazilians were concerned about assurances that she would return to Brazil and we foresaw difficulties in controlling her movements here. Beetge is a South African citizen who is not sentenced in terms of any South African law,” Cooke said.

The investigators had explored how to accommodate the Brazilian prisoner in South Africa but had learned that police and prison authorities would refuse to admit her without a court order because she was not an awaiting-trial or sentenced prisoner here.

“The judge didn’t say Beetge’s evidence has to be heard. He said it might become necessary and decisive,” said Cooke. “From a legal point of view this is very important. If you make a finding that a case cannot be heard or decided without the evidence of a particular witness and you ignore these findings, you could run into problems with a mistrial.”

Political pressure
He said he had been free to decide for himself whether to bring Beetge out and there was no political pressure on the prosecuting team, even though Cwele is the wife of Siyabonga Cwele, the minister of state security.

Beetge was arrested two years ago when Brazilian police found 10kg of cocaine in her baggage and is serving an eight-year jail term in the Penitenciária Feminina da Capital in São Paulo. The 31-year-old mother of two young daughters claims Cwele and Nabolisa, duped her into couriering the drugs.

Shai said that after Beetge had been arrested in South Africa she would become the responsibility of the prisons department and the SAPS would transport her to court. After she gave evidence there would be “another handover and a re-arrest on their side”.

Beetge’s testimony took on additional importance after another key state witness, Charmaine Moss, allegedly recruited by the two co-accused, pleaded illness after the first day of examination. According to a doctor’s letter, Moss has been booked off until October 29 because of high blood pressure and anxiety attacks.

The court has admitted as evidence revealing text messages taken from Beetge’s cellphone, which was handed to police by her mother, Marie Swanepoel, after she had ­visited her daughter in prison.

A sworn statement that Beetge made during a prison visit by investigating officer Superintendent Izak Ludick, detailing how she was allegedly used as a drug mule, was not accepted.

Cooke said he would not make any decision about whether to try for a video link-up with her until the court had ruled on whether to accept as evidence a series of intercepted calls from Nabolisa’s cellphone. The court would then hear transcripts of the conversations Nabolisa had with Cwele, Beetge and others.

Ludick, who has been investigating the case for more than two years, was also involved in trying to get Beetge to testify in person. Interpol had been used to help them negotiate with the Brazilian authorities about bringing Beetge to the trial, he said.

‘Nothing we can do’
A Brazilian judge had looked at the application and Ludick confirmed the judge had been willing to send her out — if they could provide a guarantee that she would return to prison.

“If she refuses, there is nothing we can do. The Brazilians have said they are willing to send her, but they want guarantees that she will go back,” said Ludick. “We don’t want to cause a diplomatic incident if she won’t go back. A lawyer could slap us with an interdict preventing her from returning. It could cause a problem between the two countries and it will leave egg on our faces if we don’t put her back on a plane.”

The M&G asked Mthunzi Mhaga, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, if the NPA boss, Menzi Simelane, could explain why Beetge had not been brought to South Africa. “I really can’t believe you would expect the national director of public prosecutions to answer that,” Mhaga responded, although he told the Times that the NPA was working around the clock to get Beetge to testify.

“We are trying to get her to testify. We hope the process will not delay the completion of the trial,” he is quoted as saying.