Pretoria - The assault case emanating from last year’s violent protests outside Brackenfell High School in the Western Cape has taken a shocking twist, after a victim claimed his alleged “white” assailants tried to give him a R250 000 bribe to withdraw the charges against them.
The assault charges were laid against the two accused following an EFF protest against alleged racism at the school after reports that only white learners were invited to a matric farewell party.
During a recent court appearance on December 2, the accused allegedly attempted to offer 42-year-old victim Luvuyo Ntakana a quarter of a million rand to drop the assault charges.
Ntakana, an EFF member, was yesterday unavailable to talk. However, in a media statement, the EFF Cape Metro condemned “the bribery attempts” by Dante van Wyk and Jaco Pretorius for Ntakana to drop the Brackenfell case with “an aim to defeat the ends of justice”.
Party chairperson Unathi Ntame said Ntakana was approached by the pair on December 2 while attending the court case and was offered R250 000.
The party also expressed concern about “the close proximity of the accused to a court decision that is yet to be made, and the fact that they are using that expected outcome as a bargaining tool and a form of coercion to discourage the victim from pursuing this case against them”.
Ntame said the EFF has added charges of bribery to the pair’s assault case and vowed to make sure a harsher sentence was meted out to them.
EFF spokesperson Wandile Kasibe said: “We are calling for the addition of charges because of this bribery. They must be taken to task because they are trying to interfere with the legal processes and to defeat the ends of justice.”
On December 8, 2021, Ntakana made a sworn affidavit in which he said Van Wyk and Pretorius expressed the intention to plead guilty on all charges. According to Ntakana, the pair also disclosed to him that the court would fine them when they appear again next year.
In an affidavit, Ntakana said: “Mr Dante said they are coming to apologise for what they did to me on that day, (saying) both parties were wrong. They will plead guilty on February 1, 2022, and the court told them they will pay R250 000.”
He said Van Wyk's alleged statement did not sit well with him because he held the view that it could have been communicated by the two parties’ lawyers to lawyers hired by the EFF to represent him.
He expressed surprise at the claim by the pair that the court had informed them about its imminent ruling “without informing me or the EFF lawyers about R250 000”.
An investigating officer in the case, a Captain Swarts, declined to comment on the bribery allegations, referring the Pretoria News to the SAPS communication staff. Asked if he was familiar with the case, he said: “I am familiar with the facts but I am not going to give you any information. There is a pending investigation. So I am not going to get into any matters with you."
Western Cape SAPS spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk said: “This office can confirm we checked all records based on supplied information from December 7, 2021, to date and cannot find any cases of that nature reported at Brackenfell SAPS in that time period.”
Pretoria News