CARMEL RICKARD: Baaaad judgment call
A bizarre case from a sheep-farming district of the Eastern Cape emphasises the problem with ‘Shaun the Sheep’ and his prosecuting authority
In time, when Shaun Abrahams, the much-pilloried national director of public prosecutions (NDPP), finally leaves office, we will all look back with wonder at what a sheep can do. We already know of Abrahams’s bizarre sense of priority crimes that require urgent and undivided attention — just contrast, for example, his determination to investigate and prosecute former finance minister Pravin Gordhan with his complete indifference to the gangsters running the country with the seeming connivance of the head of state. Whether this is due to the supposed timidity that has led to his nickname — Shaun the Sheep — or because of other even less flattering personal attributes, is not clear. But a bizarre case from a sheep-farming district of the Eastern Cape emphasises the problem. It’s the matter of the NDPP — yes, Abrahams — acting against a hapless small-time building subcontractor, Frans Absolon.On August 26 2016 Absolon and his friend, Johann Fleurs, were driving in his bakkie between Cr...
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