Pretoria – Advocate Annelene van den Heever, the lawyer for South African businessman and accused underworld kingpin Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala, confronted the commissioners of the Madlanga Commission as she strongly opposed his client’s scheduled questioning on Wednesday at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria.
The commission in charge of looking into claims of political meddling, criminal activity, and corruption in the criminal justice system, vehemently swayed for continuation but van den Heever maintained that the postponement would allow her client, Matlala’s criminal trial to commence fairly.
Despite the predetermined requirement that concerns regarding the Medicare 24 do not surface until the trial’s conclusion, Matala has made a brief appearance after last Tuesday’s postponement. 
That was prior to Matlala’s chaotic withdrawal from the sentence reduction for the state witness plea agreement reached with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which was the commission’s second postponement and was ruled void by the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Pretoria.
At the start of the proceedings, Advocate van den Heever requested a postponement because her client was being prosecuted on multiple counts.
Van den Heever referred to the concurrent processes that will start in the High Court and the Madlanga Commission as “piecemeal,” pointing out that it would be challenging to separate topics that would come in court next week.
She claimed her client will remain silent on the portrayal as a criminal mastermind until in court.
