SA car smuggler’s appeal dismissed
THE High Court has dismissed an appeal against refusal of bail pending appeal by a South African man who is serving a 15-year jail term for stealing a car worth $25 000 from his country before smuggling it into Zimbabwe across a dry Limpopo riverbed.
Tshepo Makinita (23) of Pretoria was last year convicted of theft and smuggling by Bulawayo regional magistrate Mr Trynos Utawashe.
He was sentenced to 15 years in jail of which three years were conditionally suspended for five years.
Makinita, a second year economics student at Tshwane University of Technology, lodged an appeal before the same magistrate and the application was dismissed.
Makinita, through his lawyers, Zvinavakobvu Law Chambers, then filed an appeal against Mr Utawashe’s refusal to grant him bail pending appeal at the Bulawayo High Court citing the state as the respondent.
In his grounds of appeal, Makinita said there was misdirection on the part of the magistrate. He argued that he only received the car and acted on representations from one Lesego Modise who indicated that his duty was only to drive the vehicle to Harare where there was a prospective buyer.
He said there was no evidence to sustain his conviction, arguing that at the very least he should not have been convicted.
“The court a quo erred and grossly misdirected itself in convicting the appellant on the basis that he himself obtained the temporary import permit and registration certificate to facilitate the movement of the vehicle and therefore he had embraced the commission of an offence when in fact there was no evidence,” said Makinita’s lawyers.
In his ruling, Justice Lawrence Kamocha said the appeal lacked merit.
In dismissing the application, the judge said he was unable to discern any misdirection or irregularity in the conviction.
The State opposed bail, arguing that there was no guarantee that if granted bail, Makinita would not abscond to his country since he is a foreigner.
The court heard that in April last year, Makinita went to Mr Prozesky Cornelius Johannes’s home and stole a Toyota Hilux registration number CZTY204L.
He went on to forge a Temporary Import Permit (TIP). TIPs are only issued by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) to foreign registered cars to allow their temporary importation into the country.
After obtaining the fake documents, Makinita smuggled the stolen car into Zimbabwe through the bush across the dry Limpopo riverbed to avoid paying duty.
On April 23, Makinita drove the car along the BeitbridgeBulawayo road. He picked one Mtanda Moyo who had asked for a lift to Gwanda. The court heard that Makinita was intercepted at a roadblock in Makhado leading to the discovery of the offence.
The vehicle was taken to Zimra and South African Revenue Services (Sars) in Beitbridge to authenticate the documents and it was discovered that they were forged leading to Makinita’s arrest. — @mashnets FREETOWN — Evangelical preacher Emmanuel Momoh prayed for five years that he would discover the diamond he needed to pull his family out of poverty in eastern Sierra Leone.
The 39-year-old pastor obtained his first mining licence in 2012 when the paltry income he received from the Deeper Life Church in Kono, the country's key mining district, was stretched too thin for his growing family. Momoh went on to build a small business of 18 employees, digging and sifting through gravel with pickaxes and hoes day after day, never finding gems larger than a speck in the dirt.
"Diamonds are extremely hard to find on the ground, it requires patience, hard work and prayers," Momoh said in Freetown, where his life is now taking a very different direction after finding what he believes was a gift from God.
The preacher declined to meet in person, citing security reasons, but pictures he provided to AFP show an angular, wide-eyed man wearing a suit that is too large, adding to his overall air of boyishness.
On March 13, the pastor was working in a village named Koryadu when a cry went up from one of his men in Krio, the most widely spoken language in Sierra Leone and used by Momoh throughout the phone interview.
"God don bless we tiday," the worker shouted, brandishing a rock the colour of pale honey and as large as a child's fist.
"We washed the diamond properly and put down our tools. Every one of us was in a jubilant mood," the pastor said. "I couldn't sleep that night, we were all praying for what God has done for us."
Momoh took the diamond the next day to be weighed by the kind of Lebanese dealer who once purchased the singlecarat gems he sold to buy food, supplies and to pay his workers' wages. At 706 carats, an amount that would later rise to 709 when it was placed on the government's official scales, Momoh's diamond was between the 10th and 15th largest ever found worldwide, experts said. — AFP.