Lawyer wants judge off Fishrot trial

One of the lawyers involved in the Fishrot fishing quotas fraud, corruption and racketeering trial has told the presiding judge he will be asking him to step down from the matter.

Defence lawyer Mbanga Siyomunji told acting judge Moses Chinhengo in the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility on Friday that he will file an application for Chinhengo to recuse himself from the trial.

Siyomunji said this after Chinhengo – despite protestations from several of the accused in the trial and from Siyomunji as well – forged ahead with plea proceedings, which began on Wednesday.

After Siyomunji voiced a concern that it would prejudice some of the accused in the matter if they were required to plead to the charges without having lawyers representing them present in court, Chinhengo said he had earlier made a ruling that plea proceedings should proceed, and that it was an exercise that should be completed.

Siyomunji said he would apply for Chinhengo’s recusal after the judge noted a plea of not guilty on a charge of racketeering on behalf of a client of Siyomunji, Nigel van Wyk, who told the court he would not give a plea on that count. Van Wyk said he would not plead to charges which he is now asking the High Court in a separate case, filed at the start of last week, to review and set aside.

By the end of the court’s session on Friday afternoon, deputy prosecutor general Ed Marondedze had put only four of the state’s 42 charges to the accused.

The charges include two counts of racketeering, of which one is against all 10 individual accused and 18 corporate entities and trusts represented by them, and the other is against the 10 individual accused only.

The other two charges that have been put are two counts of money laundering, of which one is against six individuals – ex-attorney general and justice minister Sacky Shanghala, former fisheries minister Bernhard Esau, Shanghala’s business partner James Hatuikulipi, Esau’s son-in-law Tamson Hatuikulipi, Ricardo Gustavo and Pius Mwatelulo – and 12 corporate entities and trusts represented by them, while Van Wyk alone is facing the other count of money laundering.

Five of the accused – Esau, former National Fishing Corporation of Namibia chief executive Mike Nghipunya, Tamson Hatuikulipi, Otneel Shuudifonya and Phillipus Mwapopi – told the judge they are not guilty on each of the two counts of racketeering they are facing. Nghipunya, Tamson Hatuikulipi, Shuudifonya and Mwapopi are legally represented at this stage.

Esau, whose defence lawyer, Florian Beukes, was not present in court after being booked off due to illness, told the judge he had noticed “a symphony of irregularities” in the state’s charges against himself and his co-accused.

Adding that he would be asking for Chinhengo’s recusal from the trial, Esau said he was pleading under duress.

“I’m not guilty on this case,” he stated.

Five of the accused – Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi, Gustavo, Mwatelulo and Van Wyk – refused to give their pleas on the charges they are facing.

In respect of each of them, Chinhengo said he was recording a plea of not guilty on their behalf.

With the court still dealing with the first count of racketeering, Shanghala remarked: “Should the court enter a plea it’ll be the court’s plea, not mine.”His remark was soon echoed by Gustavo, James Hatuikulipi, Mwatelulo and Van Wyk, who also told the judge they would not give a plea to the charges and that it would be the court’s plea, and not theirs, that was being noted by the judge.

The charges are based on allegations that the accused had been involved in a multimillion-dollar scheme to illegally benefit from Namibian fishing quotas.

The court proceedings are due to continue tomorrow.