Prosecutor claims drug addiction in bribery case

A DURBAN prosecutor, accused of soliciting a bribe from an advocate, yesterday told the Durban Magistrate’s Court she had threatened to report him to the authorities to put pressure on him to pay back money she was owed for undelivered drugs.

Phumzile Msimango pleaded not guilty to accepting a bribe from advocate Alli Essop to arrange for an accused not to be fingerprinted to avoid a criminal record.

Instead, she testified that the bank notes discovered by the police inside her hand bag and her office drawer were not a bribe.

According to her plea statement, Msimango met Essop in 2010 when she went to buy drugs from a different dealer at a cheaper price. She would apparently give him the money for the drugs and he would buy them and deliver them to her. She also said her employer, the National Prosecuting Authority, was aware of her drug problem.

Yesterday, she testified under cross examination that Essop had refunded her R1 000 from the R3 000 he allegedly owed her for drugs and she kept the money in two different places – inside her handbag and office drawer.

She claimed she did this to avoid being caught and also because she had planned to use some of the money at work and the rest for shopping after work.

According to the State, Essop was to text the police after delivering the money to Msimango.

State Advocate Krishen Shah said Msimango’s version was unbelievable, telling her that the fact that she had placed money inside the zip compartment in her bag and another R500 inside a drawer was suspicious.

“I just don’t keep money in one place. I keep money everywhere in my wallet, in my hand bag and in my office drawers, in fact I still do that even now

She said she did not tell the police this version during her arrest because she did not want it to be known that she was using drugs.

“I kept on telling him to pay me and he didn’t. It was not the first time that he delivered late – so I had faith and believed that he would pay me,” said Msimango.

She said on the day of the arrest, the court was in session when the officers came and informed her about the charges.

“The officers informed me about why they were there and explained my rights. I chose to exercise my right to remain silent, after all I was not obliged to give answers and needed the presence of a lawyer before saying anything,” she told the court.

Msimango claimed that after an argument in her office about her drugs and her money, she left her office and entered the court room where Essop followed her and the argument continued.

She said after months of waiting for Essop to deliver her drugs, she decided to threaten to report him to the authorities.

“Obviously I was not going to report him – I just threatened him to put pressure on him to pay back my money,” she told the court.

The matter was postponed to today for closing arguments.