A visibly emotional former National Assembly speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, appeared briefly at the Pretoria High Court on Monday, as her legal team requested bank statements related to the money laundering and corruption charges she faces.
Dressed in a green jacket, the sobbing Mapisa-Nqakula informed the court through her legal counsel of her intention to write to the national director of public prosecutions to determine whether there is a case to answer.
High Court Judge Papi Mosopa noted that Mapisa-Nqakula’s legal representatives had informed him that obtaining the bank statements would take approximately six weeks.
“A request is made by your counsel to have this matter adjourned to November 21, 2025,” Judge Mosopa stated.
He further confirmed that the defence received a comprehensive discovery docket last week, comprising 25 files.
“It is now being placed on record that your counsel has received a full discovery docket, which consists of 25 files that your counsel needs to go through,” he said.
Additionally, Mapisa-Nqakula’s legal team requested subpoenas for bank statements, but it is unclear whether these requests involve multiple banks or just one institution.
Case postponed to November 21
“A further request has been made by your counsel to subpoena bank statements. I do not know if this is from various banks or if it is one bank institution,” Judge Mosopa added.
Judge Mosopa postponed the case to November 21 to give the defence time to review the docket and obtain the requested financial records.
Mapisa-Nqakula was arrested on March 22, 2024, after handing herself over to the police at the Lyttelton police station in Tshwane.
She faces 12 counts of corruption and one count of money laundering, related to allegations that she solicited and received over R4 million in bribes from a defence contractor, Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, during her tenure as South Africa’s Minister of Defence from 2012 to 2021.
The charges relate to claims that she received cash bribes in exchange for awarding defence contracts, with specific allegations including a request for R300 000 in cash facilitated by the late secretary of defence, Sam Gulube, in November 2016.
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