Matlala fights to block Madlanga from accessing plea deal affidavits

Corruption-accused Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala’s legal team on Monday moved to block the Madlanga commission from accessing an affidavit he filed in a collapsed plea agreement.

In the documents, Matlala is believed to have provided information about police corruption in a R228m tender scandal. Before the plea deal collapsed, the NPA intended to use Matlala’s evidence and affidavit to charge top cops in the tender scandal.

During cross-examination before the Madlanga commission, Matlala broadly invoked the right not to be compelled to give self-incriminating evidence and to refuse to answer questions related to suspended police deputy commissioner Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya.

Matlala has been accused of gifting and paying large sums of money to Sibiya related to the R228m tender awarded to his company, Medicare24.

He invoked the constitutional right not to self-incriminate in most of his evidence and his relationships with top cops he is accused of bank-rolling.

Matlala’s legal team was scheduled to make a substantive legal application to explain the basis of Matlala invoking the right before, but that did not happen as his lead advocate, Annelene van den Heever, was absent due to ill health.

Pressed on how the right not to self-incriminate applied to his refusal to answer questions about Sibiya, Matlala could not provide satisfactory answers to the commission.

He told the commission the answers the inquiry sought were contained in his affidavit he made in the plea agreement with the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac).

Last month, Matlala and Idac cut a deal in which he would plead guilty of masterminding the corrupt deal and receive a reduced sentence of eight years instead of 15 years. In return, he would turn state witness against top police officers. That deal was rejected by the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court, and Matlala withdrew from the high-stakes agreement.

Evidence leader Mahlape Sello requested that Matlala make available the affidavits and statements he filed in the plea deal. Matlala had used the documents as a blanket approach to refuse to answer questions.

Adv Fatima Missi, representing Matlala, argued the affidavits in the plea deal were privileged documents that could not be disclosed to the commission. If disclosed, the commission would have access to several admissions made by Matlala in the criminal proceedings.

The Criminal Procedure Act provides that the state cannot use any admissions made by an accused in a new trial unless the accused consents.

In a rebuttal, Sello said protection of the documents applies to criminal court proceedings, and the commission was not a court.

Missi argued the approach would create a precedent that, while courts cannot use affidavits in collapsed plea agreements, commissions could access such affidavits in their investigations.