State asks for arrest warrant after Tony Yengeni fails to appear in court

13 December 2016

Cape Town – The State asked that a warrant of arrest be issued for ANC national executive committee member Tony Yengeni after he failed to appear in the Cape Town Community Court for his drunk driving trial on Tuesday.

But Magistrate Andile Booi did not make a ruling on the arrest warrant and instead postponed the case to January 29, 2017.

Yengeni was arrested in Green Point on August 12, 2013, while apparently driving his white Maserati erratically.

During brief court proceedings on Tueasday, it did not emerge why Yengeni was not in the dock.

It was not clear where he was.

State prosecutor Dale Andrews said the defence was still waiting for transcripts relating to the police investigation and could therefore not start with further arguments

Defence attorney Sylvester Vogel agreed with this and said the transcript material had been damaged.

"There were scratches across the entire disk that couldn't be transcribed," Vogel told the court.

The High Court will be approached to get a copy of the disk to prepare arguments in time for January 29.

Previously, in another case, Yengeni was found not guilty of drunk driving after he was arrested in Goodwood in 2007.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.