The cocaine trafficking trial of Sheryl Cwele, the wife of Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele, and her co-accused Frank Nabolisa resumed in the KwaZulu-Natal south coast satellite high court in Ramsgate on Monday, with Cwele’s lawyer attempting to further discredit state witness Charmaine Moss.
Moss was unable to continue her testimony in the first round of court proceedings in October last year in the face of a barrage of questions from Cwele’s lawyer, Mvuseni Ngubane, citing stress and health issues.
This time around Ngubane established that Moss had a prior conviction for shoplifting during cross-examination. Moss admitted to being found guilty of pilfering goods to the value of R3Â 276,55 from a Shelly Beach Woolworths in 2007.
Moss’s testimony last year at the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg had gone as far as to describe an aborted attempt to fly overseas to work as a beauty therapist on a trip organised by Cwele. Moss said she had called off the trip after arriving in Johannesburg and becoming suspicious as the flight arrangements and destination was changed.
Moss said she was further kept in questionable accommodation in Yeoville, Johannesburg, and allegedly assaulted by Nabolisa before returning to Durban.
Phone call transcriptions
Following Moss’s testimony on Monday, Judge Piet Koen further heard the evidence of Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Coertzen from the crime intelligence unit’s narcotics department. Coertzen outlined how intercepted phone calls from Nabolisa’s phone were processed and transcribed by his investigative team.
While judge Koen had last year allowed the intercepted phone calls and text messages between Cwele and Nabolisa to be admitted as evidence, the defence attorneys for the two accused questioned the veracity of some of the transcriptions.
Cwele’s lawyer, Ngubane pointed out that several of the transcripts in question had been noted to be unintelligible by the court approved transcription service used by the crime intelligence unit. Coertzen responded that while some tapes were unintelligible to the transcribers, he was able to understand and transcribe them having listened to “over 50Â 000 calls” made between Nabolisa and various associates, including Cele.
The state alleges that Cwele, and Nabolisa, a Nigerian national, had conspired to recruit Moss and Tessa Beetge as drug mules. Beetge is currently serving time in a Brazilian prison after being convicted of drug-trafficking. She was found with 10kg of cocaine in her luggage at a São Paulo airport in 2008.
The trial continues.