SIPHO SHONGWE’S BAIL TO BE HEARD NEXT WEEK

MBABANE – All eyes are again on Judge Sipho Nkosi. The bail hearing of Sipho Shongwe has been set to proceed before him next week Wednesday.

Shongwe’s legal team yesterday filed a notice of set down, where they indicated that Shongwe’s bail hearing will proceed on Wednesday at 9am.
The Crown is now expected to ventilate other grounds for opposing Shongwe’s bail application, after Judge Nkosi previously found that it failed to prove that he escaped or was fraudulently released from Barberton Maximum Prison in South Africa.

Some of the grounds which the Crown is expected to argue to ensure that Shongwe remained behind bars are; whether he would interfere with Crown witnesses in the event he was released on bail, whether he was a flight risk and how the interest of justice did not favour his release from custody.

It remains to be seen whether the Crown would not employ another tactic to ensure that the matter does not proceed before Judge Nkosi.
The setting down of the bail hearing comes after the court directed that Judge Nkosi should continue hearing the bail application. 
Supreme Court Judges Majahenkhaba Dlamini, Stanley Maphalalala and Jacobus Annandale ordered that the bail hearing before Judge Nkosi should continue with due expedition.

Judge Dlamini said it was his considered opinion that in light of the prevailing circumstances in and around the bail proceedings before the High Court, the Supreme Court was obliged to intervene and exercise its supervisory powers.
He said what taxed him was whether the bail application which had attracted undue media attention should be reassigned to another judge, with the possibility of further delay in concluding the hearing.

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