WeeklySA_AdminBACK AND FORTH:People’s poet crash drama with Uber driver of Somalian descent
By Ali Mphaki
A Somali national involved in a car smash with People’s Poet Mzwakhe Mbuli may have thought he had escaped the full might of the law after recklessness and negligent charges withdrawn mysteriously against him Tuesday, only for the charges reinstated three days later on Friday.
The accident happened last November when an Uber vehicle driven by Abdirant Abraham Qurane apparently rammed into Mbuli’s car parked outside the SABC offices in Auckland Park.
On inspection, the windscreen was cracked, side mirror and cover broken, while the right fender and bumper damaged.
Qurane is said to have apologized and started making phone calls, which saw scores of Somalians arriving at the scene – and apparently behaving arrogantly – until the police came and arrested the Uber driver, taken to the Brixton police station.
But not before a man supposed to be boss of the Uber driver, another Somalian, had approached Mbuli and allegedly offered to “pay” him some money to repair his car rather than have the matter reported to the police – an allegation Mbuli claims repeated in front of two members of the SAPS at the Brixton police station. Mbuli says a few days later he heard the driver had been released on an undisclosed amount of bail.
For the past six months’ Mbuli has been phoning the investigating officer, a Warrant Officer Walaza trying to find out progress about his case, but receiving no concrete information.
This until an SMS sent by Walaza on Tuesday, March 31, informing Mbuli his case withdrawn. The news of the case withdrawal was a double whammy for Mbuli, sending him into a frenzy. He started questioning the entire criminal justice system and more worringly whether the crash on his car was staged or what, since on the day he had gone to the SABC for a planned sit-in in protest against lack of airplay for his album Vuka Darkie. “Imagine you suffer an injustice and whilst waiting for justice you suffer another injustice.
“The prosecutors who have decided to withdraw this case belong to the jungle and are not even fit to preside over a kangaroo court.
“I fought against apartheid and now we have a decaying criminal justice system and what happened with this case is a bad advert for the country with its so-called ‘Best” Constitution, he said.
When Weekly SA Mirror inquired from NPA’s Gauteng spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane, she said the NPA will only make a statement on Tuesday as they were still busy with Mbuli’s representations file. But by late Friday, however, Weekly SA Mirror was privy to correspondence from Gauteng acting director of public prosecutions D Barnard to the Johannesburg acting chief prosecutor ordering that Qurane be prosecuted “summarily” and that his trial be concluded within three months and that his office be informed of the outcome.
Mbuli was relieved at the news, but still insisted that the NPA should transform and flush out “rogue’ elements and captured prosecutors’ within the system. “I will now await to hear when is the next court date. “It cannot be that I was wronged and somebody, wherever they may be coming from, can simply get away with it. “All I want is justice,” he said.
Once more approached for comment, Mjonondwane said she can confirm that the office of the DPP has taken a decision that the accused be prosecuted on a charge of recklessness and negligent driving. “I will update you as soon as a date has been set,” she said.
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