Speaker bids for withdrawal of animal cruelty charges

NATIONAL Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise will today return to the Potchefstroom Regional Court as her legal team seeks to have the animal cruelty charges against her withdrawn.

AfriForum’s chief investigator, Andrew Leask, yesterday said the private prosecution, led by by advocate Gerrie Nel closed its case after the defence brought an application to have Modise discharged in terms of Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act.

Leask explained that the act means that the accused may be discharged at close of case for prosecution.

“If, at the close of the case for the prosecution at any trial, the court is of the opinion that there is no evidence that the accused committed the offence referred to in the charge, or any offence of which he may be convicted on the charge, it may return a verdict of not guilty.”

He added the matter has now been postponed until today for the prosecution to argue the opposition to the application.

“The defence argue that the accused is not faced with any evidence that links her to the charges, and that the court should now already find her not guilty and discharge her.”

The case stems after the NSPCA obtaining a warrant to inspect the animals on a farm in Modderfontein in the district of Tlokwe belonging to Modise in 2014.

A tip-off indicated that the animals on the property had been abandoned.

A statement by the NSPCA detailed that Modise’s farm was littered with the carcasses of over 50 pigs and other dead animals such as geese, ducks, sheep and goats.

The NSPCA had been forced to put down more than 224 animals at the farm in July 2014. Nel has been pursuing the private prosecution case on behalf of the NSPCA.

Modise, who faces six counts of contravening the Animal Protection Act, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. She is being represented by advocate Dali Mpofu.