Durban - A technical glitch resulted in the adjournment of disgraced former police spokesman Colonel Vincent Mdunge’s appeal at the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday.
Mdunge was found guilty of fraud and forgery at the Durban Regional Court in 2014, and sentenced to five years in prison.
It was expected that Mdunge’s appeal against the sentence would be argued in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday, however, state representative Sandra Senekal confirmed that Mdunge had only applied for leave to appeal against his conviction, and not the sentence.
The magistrate who presided over the case is currently sitting at the Kokstad Magistrate’s Court, and will have to make herself available at the Durban Regional Court to hear Mdunge’s application for leave to appeal against his sentence.
Pietermaritzburg High Court judges Pete Koen and Johan Ploos van Amstel both agreed that the appeal against conviction and sentence should be heard together, and not piecemeal. The appeal was then adjourned by consent to October 10.
Mdunge, who was present at court on Thursday, appeared in good spirits and chatted with journalists following the adjournment.
Mdunge, who had 27 years experience with the SAPS and was a spokesman for the provincial police until he resigned in 2013, was found guilty of two counts of fraud and one of forgery over a fake matric certificate.
He had pleaded not guilty to the charges and claimed there was a vendetta against him, which had resulted in his criminal prosecution.
He said the certificate was given to him by a teacher after he successfully wrote his senior certificate in 1985.
However, in convicting Mdunge, Magistrate Thandeka Fikeni said she had been satisfied by the evidence in the state’s case about the fraudulent certificate.
Education department officials testified that official records showed Mdunge wrote matric in 1985 and failed.
He also failed three supplementary exams he wrote in March 1986.
The officials also said the exam number on the certificate appeared to be the number that Mdunge had been assigned when he wrote his Standard 8 (Grade 10) exams.
Mdunge was found guilty of fraud in relation to obtaining a salary from the police.
The court also found Mdunge guilty of fraud for presenting the matric certificate to Unisa to enrol for a diploma in police administration.
Mdunge is out on bail pending the finalisation of the appeal.
Daily News