The state insists splitting the VBS heist trials of ANC heavyweights Danny Msiza and Kabelo Matsepe from the other accused would force witnesses to testify twice and increase trial costs.

However, its bid to challenge the ruling that divided the trial has failed. 

News24 reports that Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) Judge Peter Mabuse also targeted the NPA for arguing that his decision to split the trial, where suspects associated with the VBS collapse will be tried over its alleged R2bn looting, amounted to him interfering in its efforts to pursue an organised criminal enterprise.

Former Limpopo ANC treasurer Msiza and former ANC Youth League leader Matsepe last year asked for their trial to be separated from their fellow VBS accused on the basis that they were pursuing an appeal linked to the state's alleged failure to provide them with adequate information about the charges against them. 

While Mabuse dismissed their application for their prosecution to be stayed while they pursued their appeal for further particulars, after failing to convince the court of their case, he agreed that the trial should be split.

In response, the NPA contended Mabuse may have erred in not considering the provisions of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca) when he ‘interfered in the directive of the NDPP’, Shamila Batohi, when she decided – in terms of the provisions of the Poca – that the VBS heist accused ‘must be prosecuted together’.

The judge has now found that it was ‘utterly incorrect for the state to regard a judge's exercise of his discretionary powers as an 'interference'.

‘In my view,’ Mabuse stated, ‘such unsavoury language should be avoided.’

‘I find that the provisions of Poca are read and applied subject to the Bill of Rights,’ he said.

News24 reports that he said he had found that the provisions of the organised crime legislation ‘did not prevent the court’ from invoking the section of the Criminal Procedure Act that dealt with the separation of trials ‘when it comes to the interests of justice’.

Mabuse on Monday dismissed the NPA's application to reserve five questions of law linked to his decision to split the case and effectively blocked the state from being able to dispute the lawfulness of that ruling in the SCA.

Asked for the NPA's response to Mabuse's decision, its spokesperson Mthunzi Mhaga said it had ‘noted the judgment and will now reflect on it and determine which legal avenue to explore’.

News24 notes that he had previously stated that the trial split ordered by Mabuse was ‘going to be very prejudicial to the state’.

‘It is going to overstretch the resources of the state because you will have witnesses who will be brought in twice, a new judge coming in, and new court officials who will have to assist with ... the two trials. But of importance to us, and concerning, is the fact that our witnesses will have to testify twice, and that's unfair to them.’

The VBS trial was initiated four years ago, but the state has yet to lead evidence.

It has, however, secured a potentially far-reaching guilty plea from former VBS chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi, in June last year – with the promise that he would give evidence against his co-accused.

Full News24 report