Corrupt former prosecutor who made cases disappear gets 10 years in jail

The Standerton magistrate’s court on Friday sentenced a former control prosecutor, Aaron Pule Mohanwe, to 10 years’ imprisonment after finding him guilty of two counts of corruption and defeating the administration of justice.

Mohanwe’s arrest in 2020 followed information received that he was accepting money for not enrolling drug-related cases.

“Undercover agents set up a trap for him,” National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson in Mpumalanga Monica Nyuswa said.

“On one occasion, one of the agents was arrested and placed in the court cells and another agent then approached the accused to find out what he could do to help the arrested person.” .

Nyuswa said Mohanwe, 37, asked for money from the undercover agents and they handed over the marked notes to him.

“This happened on two occasions and the transactions were recorded by the agents.”

Nyuswa said on another occasion the accused requisitioned an awaiting-trial detainee for the purpose of appearing in the district court for bail when in fact the detainee had no bail hearing scheduled and the case had already been transferred to the regional court.

“The accused never informed the investigating officers, whom he knew were vehemently opposed to the release of the accused on bail.”

Nyuswa said Moganwe informed the court in that case that the investigating officers were not interested in opposing the bail application. She said Mohanwe knew that the information about the purported bail application was not given to the investigators.

Mohanwe was dismissed from the NPA in July last year.

“This is one of those cases where the NPA will not hesitate to institute criminal action against one of its own in dealing with corruption and defeating the ends of justice,” Nyuswa said.

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