By Roland Routh
WINDHOEK – Former Commissioner of the Public Service Commission Teckla Lameck and her co-accused last week lodged an application to appeal Judge Maphios Cheda’s refusal to recuse himself from their trial.
Lameck lodged the application in her personal capacity and on behalf of her co-accused, Jerobeam Kongo Mokaxwa and Chinese citizen Yang Fan. Judge Cheda is accused by the threesome of being biased.
They made the application after they failed to have Judge Cheda remove himself from the trial after he refused to declare certain bank records declared inadmissible.
Judge Cheda in June this year dismissed the application and ordered the records admissible.
Senior Counsel Raymond Heathcote who appears on behalf of Lameck argued that the judge in essence pre-associated himself with the State when he found that “warrants” issued by a magistrate are admissible while the defence objected to summonses issued by the ACC director.
While he did refer to warrants in his judgment on the admissibility of the summonses, the judge in response to Lameck’s claim of bias said that this came up because the defence already in their plea explanations made reference to warrants that will be objected to.
Heathcote claimed that the judge made a fundamental error when he found that no real evidence of bias exists.
According to Heathcote a “reasonable, objective person would find that a possibility for bias does exist”.
He said that irreparable harm could be done to the accused if they are to sit through a criminal trial and be convicted, only to be exonerated on appeal because of the presiding officer’s pre-destined mindset.
Judge Cheda said that he would make his ruling on April 10.
Should the judge decide to deny the appeal, the defence may still petition the chief justice to hear their case.
Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang are accused of committing fraud counting into millions of Namibian dollars.
The State alleges that the trio defrauded government and Swapo company Namib Contract Haulage big time.
While Lameck and Mokaxwa alone are accused of defrauding the Swapo owned company where they worked of at least US$144 000 for the purchase of four tipper trucks, they together with Yang are accused of a range of charges under the Anti-Corruption Act.
It is alleged Lameck, Mokaxwa and Yang duped government through the Ministry of Finance to pay an inflated price of US$55 348 800 for scanners to be used at airports and border posts.
In fact, the State alleges, the price was inflated with an amount of US$12 828 800 meant as ‘commission’ for Teko Trading company that facilitated the transaction.
The other charges – Lameck faces 18, Mokaxwa 12 and Yang six – relates to transgressions of the Immigration Control Act, the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and further contraventions of the Anti-Corruption Act.