The lead investigator into the corruption case against suspended KZN Regional Court President Eric Nzimande said he had subpoenaed records from casinos from the Eastern Cape to Newcastle and from a ‘loan shark’ after allegations that Nzimande had a gambling problem.

A Business Day report says Colonel Jason McGray gave evidence yesterday at the disciplinary hearing set up by the Magistrates’ Commission, in which he is facing 162 charges of misconduct.

During the course of the hearing it has become evident that Nzimande, through his lawyer, Ravindra Maniklall, will attempt to quash the documentary evidence against him on the basis that Acting Magistrate Lindelwa Gumede – who laid the complaint against him – had subsequently withdrawn it.

This, Maniklall said, meant the commission should have cleared his name; instead it had continued to violate his constitutional right to privacy.

The commission called McGray to detail how he had registered a criminal docket in the matter and obtained warrants for Nzimande’s bank accounts, cellphone records, the records from casinos and from moneylender Five Star Cash Loans – and how these records were handed to the commission.

McGray said he had been asked to investigate the matter by the head of detectives in KZN at that time and, if it was required, to form a provincial task team.

The Business Day report notes at that time only an inquiry, as opposed to a criminal docket, had been opened, and it was his job to investigate the validity of Gumede’s claims. He said he understood Gumede had withdrawn her complaint because the commission had asked her questions about her absenteeism, which she was not prepared to answer.

‘When I read her affidavit, to be honest, it sounded like there may have been some bad blood because she wasn’t reappointed. She might not have been innocent, except if she was forced to pay the money. Otherwise it was a corrupter/corruptee relationship,’ McGray said.

Because she had said others were involved, he had subpoenaed both Nzimande’s and her bank statements and telephone records. He noticed a ‘lot of cash’ deposits in Nzimande’s accounts, plus money going to Five Star Cash Loans.

He then managed to link certain names on the accounts with certain people who were acting magistrates at the time of the payments.

One, ZW Ngwenya, was said to be an acting magistrate who had at the same time acted as a defence attorney in a rhino poaching case, he said.

The evidence he gathered, while circumstantial, seemed to support Gumede’s version and the ‘allegations of corruption’ still remained, though she had withdrawn her statement, he said.

His impression was that she said Nzimande had paid her back R40 000 ‘so now she is going to keep quiet’.

He said the commission was the complainant in the matter and he had handed over all the records he received at the request of the judge who chaired the commission at the time.

Full Business Day report