Former District Court Control Prosecutor Sentenced For Corruption

The Standerton Magistrates’ Court convicted and sentenced a former District Court Control Prosecutor, Aaron Pule Mohanwe (35), to ten years of direct imprisonment, for two counts of corruption and defeating the administration of justice. His conviction follows information which was received, that the accused was receiving money for not enrolling in drug-related cases. Section 252A of the Criminal Procedure Act was established, that is by employing four undercover agents to trap the accused, and on, two occasions, one of the agents was arrested, and placed in the court cells and the other agent then approached the accused, to find out what would he do to help the arrested person.

The accused would ask for money from the undercover agents, and they handed over the marked money to the accused, and this happened on two different occasions. The transactions were recorded by the agents in this case. The accused would requisition an awaiting trial prisoner, who had no bail at that stage. In that matter, the case was already transferred to the Regional Court. He requisitioned the accused to his court for purposes of bail application in the District Court. No prior permission was requested and obtained from the Senior Public Prosecutor, to place the matter back on the roll.

The accused never informed the investigating officers, whom he knew were vehemently opposed to the release of the accused on bail. Surprisingly on the date, he requisitioned the accused to appear in the District Court and informed the court that the investigating officers were not interested in opposing the bail application. He knew that the information was not given to the investigators and further that the investigators were not aware of his initiatives, to bring the matter from Regional Court to the District Court for purposes of the bail application. On the date when the accused were requisitioned, bail was granted for a Schedule 6 offence, that is robbery with aggravating circumstances in a business robbery.

The prosecutor was arrested, prosecuted and eventually convicted on two counts of corruption and one count of defeating the administration of justice. He was sentenced to ten years of direct imprisonment for corruption, ten years for another count of corruption and seven years for a count of defeating the ends of justice. The court ordered that the sentences for counts two and three-run concurrently with the sentence on count one, the effective sentence is ten years of direct imprisonment. 

The accused has since been dismissed from his service in July 2021.

Issued by,

Monica Nyuswa

Regional Spokesperson

DPP Mpumalanga

Enquiries: mnyuswa@npa.gov.za

0764855446