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The Mercury<\/p>\n
The shoe was on the other foot for Durban prosecutor Phumzile Msimango when she appeared in the Durban Magistrates Court for allegedly accepting a bribe. She was arrested during a sting operation by the police. Picture: SBonelo Ngcobo<\/p>\n
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Durban – A Durban prosecutor who was arrested for allegedly taking a R1 000 bribe from an advocate this week would ensure that a suspect\u2019s fingerprints were not taken so they would not have a criminal record. <\/p>\n
Details of this arrangement emerged in the Durban Magistrate\u2019s Court on Wednesday where Phumzile Msimango was released on R10 000 bail. <\/p>\n
Msimango, 33, employed by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for the past six years, was arrested on Tuesday following a sting operation by the police\u2019s KwaDukuza cluster task team. <\/p>\n
Msimango allegedly solicited a R1 000 bribe from the advocate representing a suspect facing assault and fraud charges. <\/p>\n
Senior public prosecutor Barend Groen told the court that R500 of the bribe was recovered in Msimango\u2019s purse while the rest was found in her office. <\/p>\n
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Msimango appeared unfazed and was composed during the hearing. <\/p>\n
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Groen did not oppose bail. <\/p>\n
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Defence attorney Clinton Short argued that his client had no previous convictions or pending cases. <\/p>\n
The court heard that Msimango earned a salary of R14 000, had a two-year-old child and lived in the city centre. <\/p>\n
Magistrate Vanitha Armu at first set bail at R3 000 but <\/p>\n
Groen opposed the amount, arguing that R20 000 had been discussed with Short, before the court hearing. <\/p>\n
Short confirmed that R20 000 was \u201cdiscussed\u201d but that he did not agree. <\/p>\n
Groen said Msimango was still employed by the NPA, was not suspended and the bail amount should be \u201cnothing lower than R10 000\u201d. <\/p>\n
He also revealed that the State was expecting that more complainants would come forward. <\/p>\n
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Armu then set bail at R10 000. <\/p>\n
She ruled that Msimango had to report to the Dr Yusuf Dadoo (Broad) Street police station every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 6am and 6pm; that she not communicate with the clerk or the orderly in court F; and that she inform the investigating officer if she changed her address. She may also not apply for a passport. <\/p>\n
Msimango complained, through Short, about the photographers in the courtroom, but the magistrate said she had allowed them. <\/p>\n
The case was postponed to July 25 for further investigation. <\/p>\n
Outside the courtroom Short told The Mercury that he would take the bail application on review. <\/p>\n
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KwaZulu-Natal NPA spokeswoman Natasha Ramkisson said Msimango could report for work on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll allow for internal processes to take their course,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Mercury The shoe was on the other foot for Durban prosecutor Phumzile Msimango when she appeared in the Durban Magistrates Court for allegedly accepting a bribe. She was arrested during a sting operation by the police. Picture: SBonelo Ngcobo Related Stories Graft accused prosecutor granted bail Prosecutor accused of taking bribe arrested Prosecutor held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-21069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}