Senior East London prosecutor arrested after dockets go missing

A senior East London public prosecutor implicated  in cases of missing dockets is due to appear in court on Thursday.

Police spokesperson Brig Tembinkosi Kinana said the 50-year-old was arrested in Amalinda Forest during an operation by the provincial anti-corruption unit  and crime intelligence on Monday.

According Kinana, “numerous” dockets disappeared from the East London magistrate's court as far back as 2016.

“The anti-corruption unit identified a threat after receiving reports of continuous and numerous missing court dockets in the East London magistrate's court in 2016,” said Kinana on Wednesday evening. 

“The investigations started, some of which included two cases of drunken driving in one of which the victim was asked to pay a sum of R20,000. Consequently, the said case went missing. ”

After police reconstructed the docket, the suspect allegedly convinced the victim to pay more money and promised to make it disappear again.

“This time the suspect asked the victim to pay R5,000 so that the reconstructed court docket could be destroyed as well, in order to help him escape prosecution. This brought the amount pocketed from the victim to R25,000 in total,” said Kinana.

The prosecutor, who allegedly evaded arrest at some stage,  is facing charges of corruption and defeating the course of justice.

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