Taxi boss Sibanyoni's bail application to continue: Ofentse Setimo updates

本站添加: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]To tell you that there's plenty on the go because there's another important court story today in Mpumalanga. The bail application of prominent taxi boss Joe Ferreira Spanyoni and his three co- three co-accused, I beg your pardon, expected to continue at the Kwaggafontein Magistrate's Court today.

[00:00:14]Spanyoni as well as Daniel Maluleke, Filimon Msiza and Oupa Sindane face charges of extortion and money laundering. On Friday all four indicated that they intend to plead not guilty and maintain they have no involvement in these alleged crimes. SABC news reporter Ofentse Sedimo is watching the story and joins us now live from inside court itself. And Ofentse, amongst the many things we're anticipating to see today is whether or not the media will be allowed or granted access to essentially broadcast proceedings.

[00:00:48]Absolutely and a good morning to you, Ayanda. Well, you know, actually on Friday there was an application that was actually made by the media to try and film inside court of which the previous bail application which was on Wednesday, we were actually allowed to film the accused and their counsel but only those wanted not show the officials, the court officials. But on Friday they made an order that we cannot show the accused, we cannot show the court officials, we cannot show the defense counsel of the accused and can only show the gallery where people attending this particular court case will be seating. So, even today we made a fresh application where we are going to hear as to the limitations of our broadcasting where they would actually limit them but we are hoping that if they can give us a chance to actually film the accused so that the public, the broader public itself who are actually not able to make it here in court will be able to see the accused in court. Well, on Friday the presiding officer of this particular bail bail application that is Ms. Thule Tonjen actually made a ruling to say that the state and the investigating officer need to be here in court by 9:00 as proceedings will actually proceed around 9:00. But then that put senior state advocate Mkhululi Chelin Ntshaba in a very difficult position as he indicated to the court that he had another pending bail application in Midrand that he had to attend to.

[00:02:14]That's when the presiding officer actually made a ruling to say that today is the day that they will sit for this particular bail application. And in fact, the state also raised some concerns to say that you know, there are people who are remanded behind bars whose bail is still pending. But to a certain extent, he sort of insinuated that the court was bending over backwards to ensure that this particular bail application is actually expedited. So as you are right, it will be interesting to see as to whether the state advocate will actually try and prioritize this case as to the one that he had indicated that he will be attending to in Midrand. So we will definitely hear how that one pans out, Ayanda. All right, our offenses team was live to us from outside the Kagiso Magistrate Court. Not the best audio connection, our apologies for that. But we'll certainly keep a close eye on that story for you.