Key witness grilled in Namibian copper case

Namibia: Key Witness Put Through the Wringer in Copper Fraud Trial
AllAfrica.com - Washington,USA
A Key prosecution witness in the Telecom Namibia scrap copper corruption trial is set to face a fifth day of cross-examination when the trial continues in the High Court in Windhoek today. Having endured five days of defence lawyer Willie Vermeulen, SC, dissecting and whittling down the testimony he has been giving before Judge Collins Parker since Monday last week, former Telecom Namibia Procurement Manager Ivan Ganes can expect to be in for more of the same painstaking questioning. Ganes is giving evidence in the trial of a former colleague of his at Telecom Namibia, James Camm, and businessmen Ettienne Weakley and Heinz Dresselhaus, whose scrap dealership, Dresselhaus Scrap CC, had a deal with Telecom Namibia in terms of which it bought all the telecommunications parastatal's scrap copper from mid-1997 to mid-2001. The three charged men, who are denying guilt, are on trial on 30 counts of corruption, fraud and theft, including 13 counts of fraud that are identical to charges to which Ganes pleaded guilty in the High Court in May 2005 ... According to a plea explanation from Weakley that was submitted to Judge Parker at the start of the trial, the initial agreement that was concluded between Telecom Namibia and Dresselhaus Scrap in October 1997 did not provide for a situation where Dresselhaus Scrap was required to also dismantle redundant phone lines in order to collect scrap copper wire from Telecom Namibia. To provide for such a scenario where Dresselhaus Scrap also had to dismantle old phone lines, further agreements were reached with Telecom Namibia in terms of which Dresselhaus Scrap was allowed to charge Telecom for labour costs at a rate of N$2 200 per ton ...