{"id":45174,"date":"2026-09-10T16:26:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45174"},"modified":"2026-09-10T16:26:44","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T14:26:44","slug":"sa-court-rejects-judge-recusal-bid-in-bushiri-linked-trial","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-court-rejects-judge-recusal-bid-in-bushiri-linked-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"SA court rejects judge recusal bid in Bushiri linked trial \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A high court in South Africa (SA) has thrown out a bid to remove the presiding judge from the trial of Zambian businessman Joseph Mudolo, his wife, and their co-accused over an alleged multi-million-Rand money laundering scheme.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Judge Mudunwazi Makamo dismissed the recusal application in the Pretoria High Court, ruling that the case against the group will proceed under his oversight. The defendants face serious charges of theft and money laundering linked to the network of fugitive Malawian preacher Shepherd Bushiri.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Defence lawyers had argued that Makamo should step aside to guarantee a fair trial, claiming certain defendants were denied the chance to present their arguments properly. They also questioned the fairness of allowing affidavit evidence from a Data Manager at SA&#8217;s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>State prosecutors pushed back against the application, telling the court that Mudolo&#8217;s claims were factually flawed and failed to meet the legal standard required to prove judicial bias.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":45176,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-45174","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Trial of Zambian businessman linked to Bushiri to proceed in SA","published_date":"2026-09-10 16:23:16","news_description":"Trial of Zambian businessman linked to Bushiri to proceed in SA","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45177,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/45174\/revisions\/45177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=45174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}