Shanghala and co‑accused delaying Fishrot trial, judge says

Former justice minister and attorney general Sacky Shanghala and two of his co-accused in the Fishrot fraud, corruption and racketeering case have been using a strategy to delay their trial, a judge remarked in a ruling delivered in the High Court yesterday.

Acting judge Marilize du Plessis said in a ruling handed down at the High Court at Windhoek Correctional Facility that the Fishrot case, which has been pending since October 2021, has been beset by delays.

She noted that the leading of witnesses’ testimony has not yet started, even though the case has been on the court’s roll for more than four years.
“Application after application has been brought before the court tasked with the hearing of the case,” Du Plessis said.

She continued: “None of the applications brought before the criminal court have been found to have any merit and it is difficult to find, when looking at the numerous civil applications that have simultaneously been filed, decided on and appealed against as well as the applications which are still pending, that there is not, at least to a degree, a tactical delaying strategy at play from the side of specifically [Shanghala, James Hatuikulipi and Pius Mwatelulo].”

Du Plessis made the remark in a ruling on applications by Shanghala, Hatuikulipi, Mwatelulo, Otneel Shuudifonya and defence lawyer Veiko Alexander, representing former National Fishing Corporation of Namibia chief executive Mike Nghipunya, for a postponement of the Fishrot trial, in which plea proceedings were concluded in December 2024.

Shanghala, Hatuikulipi, Mwatelulo and Shuudifonya applied for a postponement of their criminal case until an application that they filed at the High Court in November last year and a Supreme Court appeal about a Prevention of Organised Crime Act restraint order granted in respect of assets belonging to some of them have been decided.

Alexander also asked the judge to postpone the case to give him more time to prepare for the trial, and Shuudifonya asked for time to have a new lawyer instructed by the Directorate of Legal Aid to represent him, after his previous lawyer’s representation was ended in October last year.

In the application that they filed in November, Shanghala, Hatuikulipi, Shuudifonya and Mwatelulo are asking the court to restrain the prosecutor general from continuing to prosecute them until the civil application that they filed has been decided.

They are also applying for an interdict permanently stopping their prosecution “based on any evidential information obtained and gathered from the unconstitutional, unlawful, unprocedural and ultra vires investigations” allegedly conducted by the Anti-Corruption Commission.

Du Plessis noted in her ruling that the Supreme Court stated in March 2023 in a judgement on a bail appeal by some of the accused charged in the Fishrot case that the legality of the manner in which evidence was obtained against the accused is a matter that has to be decided by the criminal trial court.

She noted that Shanghala acknowledged the civil application filed in November last year could take two years to be decided in the High Court and on appeal in the Supreme Court.

Trial dates were decided at the beginning of 2025, after consultation between all relevant parties in the case, and it cannot be said by the accused that the court is forcing the matter to proceed to trial, Du Plessis said.

“To the contrary, this court has bent over backwards to accommodate the numerous applications brought by the accused persons,” she added.

A postponement as requested by Shanghala, Hatuikulipi, Mwatelulo and Shuudifonya for what could be a number of years “is neither expedient nor necessary”, Du Plessis said.

She also remarked: “This is a case in which the concept of time has lost all meaning. Months of delay are followed by years of delay.”

The court will continue with the criminal trial until it has been ordered to halt, Du Plessis said.

Du Plessis granted the application for a postponement that Alexander and Shuudifonya requested to have more time to prepare for the trial, and postponed the case to 9 March for the continuation of the trial.

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