WINDHOEK – The State through Advocate Jack Eixab will have its chance tomorrow to respond to Teckla Lameck’s application for Judge Maphios Cheda to recuse himself from her corruption trial.
Lameck through her legal representative Sisa Namandje cited bias on the part of the judge seconded from the Bulawayo circuit court when she made the recusal application in her personal capacity and on behalf of co-accused, Jerobeam Kongo Mokaxwa and Chinese citizen Yang Fan.
They made the application last week on Thursday when their trial was to resume after a break of more than eight months following an application by the defence to have certain bank records declared inadmissible. Judge Cheda in June this year dismissed the application and ordered the records admissible.
It is on this ruling they now stake their application for the judge’s recusal. They also applied that the proceedings so far in the trial be quashed and the trial to start afresh before another judge.
In the application for the recusal of Judge Cheda, Lameck submitted an affidavit in which she questions the judge’s bias. She said while their objection was against the summonses used to obtain the financial information, the judge ruled on warrants issued by a magistrate.
According to Lameck, the State never led any evidence on the warrants and as such they never had an opportunity to object to the validity of such warrants. The only issue Judge Cheda had to decide upon was the validity of the summonses issued by Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Paulus Noa, which he failed to do, Lameck charged. She says it was clear what was challenged during the proceedings so far was the admissibility of the summonses and not the search warrants and the judge’s ruling pre-empted their future objection to the search warrants and thus constitutes a real possibility of unfair bias.
Lameck, her business partner Mokaxwa and Chinese citizen Yang are accused of committing fraud amounting to 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, Yang and Mokaxwa 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 US$12 828 800 meant as ‘commission’ for Teko Trading who facilitated the transaction. The other charges – Lameck faces 18, Mokaxwa 12 and Yang 6 – relate to transgressions of the Immigration Control Act, the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and further contraventions of the Anti-Corruption Act.
Lameck is charged with doing work for remuneration outside her office as a member of the Public Service Commission by inducing the Ministry of Finance as the principle agent of the Republic of Namibia to purchase the scanners from Nuctech, a company based in China.
Judge Cheda postponed the matter to Wednesday, 20 August for the State now solely represented by Eixab after the retirement of veteran prosecutor, Advocate Danie Small, to submit its opposing affidavit.