Evidence ruled out of lawyer’s corruption trial

A sound recording and transcribed record of a meeting that led to the criminal charges on which Windhoek-based lawyer Dirk Conradie and a co-accused are being prosecuted will not be accepted as evidence in their trial, a judge has ruled.

Judge Thomas Masuku refused to allow the state to have the recording and transcript finally admitted as evidence in the drawn-out trial of Conradie and a co-accused, Sara Damases, in a ruling that he delivered in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.

Masuku said in his ruling that in his view the state did not prove the sound recording and transcript are authentic, reliable and accurate.

He added that, due to the death of Namibian Police Forensic Science Institute director Paul Ludik before he could testify about the recording and transcript that the state wanted to use as evidence, Conradie and Damases would not be able to exercise their constitutional right to cross-examine Ludik. A denial of that right would infringe their rights to a fair trial, Masuku said.

The sound recording was made at a meeting between Conradie, Damases and the directors of the advertising company DV8 Saatchi & Saatchi, Mark Bongers and Kim Field, at Conradie’s office in Windhoek on 12 June 2012.

The state is alleging that during that meeting Conradie offered to use his influence as chairperson of the board of directors of cellphone company MTC to have an advertising contract worth about N$60 million awarded to DV8 Saatchi & Saatchi, if the advertising company’s directors agreed to take Damases on board as a black economic empowerment partner.

Conradie (64) and Damases (59) are jointly charged with one count of corruptly soliciting gratification as a reward for using influence in procuring a contract and a charge of attempting or conspiring to contravene sections of the Anti-Corruption Act.

Conradie alone is also charged with corruptly using his former position as MTC board chairperson to obtain gratification for himself or another person.

Conradie and Damases pleaded not guilty to the charges in the High Court in March 2016. The first testimony in their trial was heard only in May 2018.

After the start of the trial, the state and defence agreed that a sound recording made at the meeting between Conradie, Damases, Bongers and Field, and a transcript of that recording, could be provisionally admitted as evidence before Masuku.

Bongers and Field were both extensively cross-examined by Conradie’s defence lawyer, South African senior counsel Vas Soni, on the meeting and the transcript when they testified as state witnesses during the trial.

The ruling given on Friday was on an application by the state to have the recording and transcript finally admitted as evidence in the trial.

Masuku postponed the trial to 21 September after delivering his ruling.

Conradie and Damases both remain free on a warning from the court.

Soni is representing Conradie on instructions from Slysken Makando. Defence lawyer Vetu Uanivi is representing Damases.

Deputy prosecutor general Ed Marondedze is representing the state.