The parties have been provided with three months in which to respond. These include, among others, the President of South Africa on behalf of the Government of South Africa, the African National Congress, the French and Belgian governments, French arms giant Thales, and South African state owned arms company Denel. Banks served include Belgium’s Kredietbank and the Luxembourg based KBL.
The People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime in South Africa held its first hearings from the 3-7 February 2018. During these inaugural hearings, over fifteen witness and whistle-blowers gave evidence relating to apartheid-era sanctions busting, alleged corruption in the 1999 Arms Deal and state capture related to Denel. The evidence they presented convincingly joins the dots between economic crime of the past and present. An esteemed panel whose members were drawn from legal and civil society backgrounds, namely, Zak Yacoob, Navi Pillay, Mandisa Dyantyi, Dinga Sikwebu and Allyson Maynard Gibson considered this evidence. At the end of the five days, the panel made preliminary findings that implicate individuals, corporations and governments and the panel requested that these parties be notified and given an opportunity within a three month timeframe to respond to the allegations against them. [View the preliminary findings at: https://corruptiontribunal.org.za/findings/]
Should the implicated parties respond within the three month deadline, members of the panel will consider this when compiling a final report for the People’s Tribunal. This final report will not be legally binding, but will contain recommendations that will be handed over to the relevant authorities for further investigation.
The Tribunal’s organising committee comprises a range of civil society organisations, including Corruption Watch, the Foundation for Human Rights, Open Secrets, Public Affairs Research Institute and the Right2Know Campaign.
For more information about the Tribunal and to access all the evidence presented at the hearings, please visit the website: corruptiontribunal.org.za.
This article was originally published on: https://corruptiontribunal.org.za/2018/03/06/press-release-peoples-trib…
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