Norma Gigaba back in court over property damage, crimen injuria case
Norma Gigaba was arrested in July on charges of malicious damage to property and crimen injuria. This was after she severely damaged a luxury car belonging to her husband, former Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s, friend.
by Veronica MokhoaliJOHANNESBURG - The case of the wife of former Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, Norma, is back in court on Monday following her arrest by the Hawks.
Norma Gigaba, who has chosen to go by her maiden name of Mngoma, was arrested in July on charges of malicious damage to property and crimen injuria. This was after she severely damaged a luxury car belonging to her husband’s friend.
She is expected to appear in the Pretoria Magistrates Court after she allegedly caused extensive damage to a Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG driven by her husband and also sent insulting WhatsApp messages to his friend.
In urgent an application bought to the Pretoria High Court last week, Gigaba said that her arrest was an orchestrated scheme to intimidate, bully and to gain unlawful access to her devices.
Armed with legal heavyweights, including lawyer Victor Nkhwashu and Advocate Dali Mpofu, her team is challenging the rationality and legality of the warrant used to arrest her.
She claimed that prior to her arrest the Hawks seized all her gadgets and then later allegedly deleted messages, images and data from them for reasons that she had yet to publicly reveal.
The Hawks strongly denied that there was anything unlawful or malicious about the arrest of the former Cabinet minister’s wife.
The unit said that she was under investigation for allegedly stating in a text message that she “would hurt and destroy” her husband.
The court is expected to determine a trial date.