SAPS flags Scharnick plea: 18 car-jackings, R150,000 fine, five-year suspended sentence
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has referred a controversial plea deal involving KwaZulu-Natal businessman Stuart Scharnick to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for review.
Acting Deputy Provincial Commissioner for Crime Detection in KwaZulu-Natal, Major General Anthony Gopal, revealed that Shanek was linked to 29 criminal dockets in the province, including 18 involving vehicle theft and carjackings, which were consolidated into a single plea resulting in a five-year suspended sentence and a R150,000 fine.
“We have looked at 29 criminal case dockets. 10 of these 29 dockets were part of that plea related to theft of motor vehicles, and eight were cases of carjacking. So if you understand what we spoke about earlier, someone talks, Mr Scharnick talks about 18 counts on one case. There are 18 case dockets, a combination of hijackings and theft of motor vehicles that we are talking about,” Gopal said.
“In court, these dockets went to court. You consolidate all these 18 dockets, you call it one case, and you give one sentence of five years suspended, and you say there’s a fine that you can pay of 150,000 rand over five years. I leave that to the NPA, but I’m not making a statement that I’m leaving to the NPA,”
Gopal added that the dockets reveal a pattern of organised criminal activity, with Shanek often acting as a middleman in the sale of stolen vehicles.
He also explained that the SAPS has compiled two separate dossiers, one for the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the plea process, and another for the Magistrate Judicial Commission to examine whether the magistrate had all relevant information when accepting the plea.
“We are preparing two dossiers. One will go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, where we’re highlighting what our findings were. We will also send a separate dossier to the magistrate judicial commission for them to undertake an exercise to determine whether the magistrate was provided with all the relevant information when he accepted this plea from the accused,” Gopal said.
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