Arrest warrant issued for Dudu Myeni after no-show at court

A warrant of arrest has been issued against former South African Airways (SAA) chairperson Dudu Myeni after she failed to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.

Myeni pulled a no-show, citing an illness resulting in her case being postponed to 14 June.

The former SAA chair’s case was previously postponed during her first appearance in March this year for the state to consider various representations made by her legal team.

According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Myeni’s arrest warrant will be on hold and will be executed if she fails to show without providing a valid reason. 

“Myeni was not present in court and her legal team informed the court that her absence was due to a medical condition.

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“[Advocate] Rendani Ndou applied for a warrant of arrest, which will be stayed until her next court appearance,” NPA Gauteng spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane said in a statement.

Mjonondwane indicated that the office of the provincial Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has made a decision to proceeed with the prosecution against Myeni.

“The NPA is convinced she has a case to answer against the allegation, that she deliberately disobeyed the order made by the Chairperson of the Commission into State Capture allegations,” she said.

Mr X

Myeni is facing charges of defeating the administration of justice after she outed a witness during her testimony at the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture in November 2020.

She revealed the identity of Mr X, who previously implicated Myeni at the commission. He said that she had instructed him to transfer R1 million into the account of the Jacob G Zuma Foundation.

At the time, Myeni claimed that Mr X was “a family member” before blurting out his surname despite a warning from the commission’s chairperson Chief Justice Raymond Zondo not to repeat it.

The incident led to the commission lodging a criminal complaint against Myeni for revealing the identity of the witness.

READ MORE: Zondo report: How Dudu Myeni drove SAA into the ground

Zondo had instructed Myeni that the person’s identity should not be made public and he was thus referred to as “Mr X”.

The chairperson explained that he took the decision to lodge the complaint after reviewing Myeni’s affidavit explaining her conduct when she identified Mr X at the commission.

He indicated that the commission wanted the police to investigate a possible contravention of regulation 9 of the inquiry’s regulations – which empowers Zondo to direct a witness’s identity be protected, or the Commission’s Act – which makes anyone who “wilfully hinders or obstructs” the commission’s performance, guilty of an offence.