Sizani turns to high court to remove magistrate

Ambassador’s wife facing charges of money laundering

Portia “Pankie” Sizani‚ the wife of South Africa’s ambassador to Germany Stone Sizani‚ yesterday resorted to the Grahamstown High Court in a bid to review a magistrate’s decision not to recuse himself from her fraud and money-laundering trial.

Sizani’s counsel Advocate Johan Wessels argued there was much to substantiate Sizani’s subjective perception that the magistrate presiding in her R1.2-million fraud trial‚ Mputumi Mpofu‚ was biased against her.

He said it was because of the way in which Mpofu always ruled against her during the trial that she had developed her perception of bias.

Wessels said Mpofu had not been open to argument or persuasion, even when evidence of undisputable fact had been placed before him.

The 49-year-old former early childhood development district coordinator stands accused of defrauding the provincial education department by creating “ghost” teachers and pocketing their salaries between 2009 and 2010. Mpofu has already found Sizani not guilty on five of the 15 counts of money laundering against her.

But she still faces over a dozen counts of fraud and money laundering.

Advocate Albert Beyleveld‚ for Mpofu‚ said whether the magistrate’s decisions could be considered good‚ bad or indifferent‚ it could not be argued that he had not applied his mind to argument. “This was not the attitude of a magistrate who is prejudicing the accused because he is biased.”

Sizani’s trial in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court in September was postponed to February pending the outcome of the review application which was argued yesterday.

Judges Jeremy Pickering and Gerald Bloem reserved judgment.