By Karyn Maughan.
The Free State High Court in Bloemfontein dismissed the State’s bid to challenge the summary acquittals granted to all the accused in its first state capture trial, which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) decried as a “miscarriage of justice”.
Acting Judge Nompumelelo Gusha dismissed the NPA’s application to reserve “questions of law” in relation to her decision to grant Section 174 discharges to all but one of the accused in the R24.9 million Nulane fraud and money-laundering trial.
The eighth accused, former Free State agriculture department head Limakatso Moorosi, had closed her case and was acquitted.
The case was one of two the NPA had tried to seek the extradition of Atul and Rajesh Gupta from the UAE. The Dubai Appeal Court dismissed that application earlier this year.
It was the State’s case that the Free State Department of Agriculture paid R24.9 million to Nulane Investment for a fraudulent feasibility study on the Free State’s flagship Mohoma Mobung project, which Nulane then paid Deloitte R1.5 million to do.
Nulane allegedly altered the findings of Deloitte’s draft report to push for a “strategic partnership” with another Gupta-linked entity, the Paras Dairy in India.
That report paved the way for the R288-million Vrede Dairy project scandal, which saw millions intended for the empowerment of poor black farmers allegedly making its way into the pockets of the Guptas.
The NPA alleged the Gupta brothers were involved in laundering Nulane’s ill-gotten gains from the feasibility study scam.
In a detailed ruling, Gusha described why the State had failed to lead evidence that would require the accused to defend themselves.
She has stood by that decision, finding that the “questions of law” raised by the NPA were, in fact, questions of fact that the State was not entitled to challenge on appeal.