Windhoek-based lawyer Dirk Conradie and friend Sara Damases are asking Windhoek High Court Judge Thomas Masuku to dismiss bribery charges against them.
In a section 174 application for discharge heard on Friday, they claim the State failed dismally to place any prima facie evidence before the court, and they are thus entitled to be found not guilty without having to give evidence.
The judge already declared the recordings made by Mark Bongers and Kim Fields – the owners of advertising company DV8 Saatchi and Saatchi – during a meeting they had with Conradie and Damases inadmissible as evidence.
The recordings are the basis on which the case against Conradie and Damases was based.
The duo face three counts of contravening the Anti-Corruption Act for allegedly attempting to bribe Bongers and his wife and business partner Fields with the massive advertising contract of MTC, where Conradie was the board chairman. He allegedly promised them the MTC advertising contract if they took Damases on board as a black economic empowerment (BEE) partner.
Bongers made a recording of a meeting he and Fields had with Conradie and Damases in the office of Conradie on 12 June 2012, and subsequently reported the alleged bribe to the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
In the recordings, Conradie can be heard asking Bongers and Fields whether they had a BEE partner, and when Bongers answered in the negative, Conradie said he could provide them with one.
Conradie can further be heard saying the company of Bongers and Fields – DV8 Saatchi and Saatchi – is not the favourite to win the MTC advertising contract, worth an estimated N$60 million at the time, but that he could change it in their favour. Vas Soni SC, on behalf of Conradie, submitted that the State failed to prove its case against his client, This, he said, is borne out by the fact that the recordings were declared inadmissible, which means that the oral evidence of Bongers and Fields has no status, and should be struck from the record. Without that evidence, the State has nothing. Vetu Uanivi, on behalf of Damases, said that his client was the victim of a witch-hunt.
Her only sin, he said, was that she was with accused 1. The evidence presented in court exonerates her, and she must be acquitted on all charges, Uanivi argued. State Advocate Ed Marondedze countered that the State provided enough prima facie evidence against both accused to put them on their defence. He said there is undisputed evidence that the accused must answer for. Judge Masuku will deliver his ruling on 16 July.