Warrants for alleged cattle thief mastermind defective, lawyer says

The lawyer defending Ntandokazi Xoliswa Mbombo, the woman accused of being the mastermind behind a stock theft syndicate operating in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, has called for all warrants of arrests against his client to be set aside and for the accused be released.

Advocate Matthew Mpahlwa, whose client is accused of stealing cattle worth more than R6.2m, has described the warrants of arrest as “defective”.

He told Tsolo magistrate Zukile Mqwishi on Wednesday that the warrants were issued in Mthatha although the cases were to be heard in other jurisdictions. Also, he said, the warrants were not signed by a police officer but by a prosecutor, the offences committed were not written down and the date stamp and handwritten dates did not correspond.

Mbombo was scheduled to appear at the Qumbu magistrate’s court for the theft of 21 cattle worth R210,000 in May. Instead, due to electricity problems, she appeared in Tsolo, where she is accused of stealing 46 cattle worth R644,000 in November 2019.

Mpahlwa said Mbombo’s continued detention on the basis of the “defective” warrants of arrest would be unlawful.

“The warrants of arrest date stamp is June 10 and the handwritten date is June 11. My client has been languishing in a cold cell for 30 days on the basis of these defective warrants of arrest. There is something dirty with them. They were sought erroneously and issued erroneously, even if they were granted by a magistrate,” said Mpahlwa.

Before the court proceedings started, a sheriff of the court served Mthatha senior public prosecutor Thango Pangalele and investigating officer Colonel Sello Rute with an order by the high court in Makhanda signed by judge Nomathamsanqa Beshe.

Beshe, in the July 7 order, instructed police minister Bheki Cele, justice & correctional services minister Ronald Lamola, the Mthatha prison head and Rute to ensure that Mbombo was brought to the Tsolo magistrate’s court for a bail application. It also said that she should have access to a telephone to enable legal consultation and access to her family doctor.

Pangalele poured cold water on the claims of defective warrants.

“The problem on the date stamp is a simple error that the date stamp was mistakenly not changed. We are not dealing with robots, we are dealing with busy human beings, human error will always pop up. So we must not be too excited and speak loudly to fix a minor error. All the offences committed by Mbombo are written. Like the Qumbu case, we vehemently oppose bail,” said Pangalele.

Pangalele said the court order came late after all the things contained in it had already been done or commitments made.

“There is nothing too striking in this court order. We brought Mbombo in front of this court even before we knew about it. We have long been ready to proceed with the bail application even before this order was served to us, but delays were caused by Ms Mbombo herself. So all that is said in this order is what has already been done,” said Pangalele.

Pangalele said it was advisable for Mbombo, who is to appear in Qumbu, Mthatha, Ngcobo, Tsolo, KwaBhaca and  Makhanda magistrate's courts, among others, “to focus on one bail application at a time rather than "launching many bail applications all over the show at the same time”.

The matter was postponed to Thursday. ​