Prominent preacher Prophet Shepherd Bushiri has demanded an apology from the South African government, saying he and his wife had been unjustly targeted for being foreigners, hence their decision to flee the country unceremoniously.
Bushiri said this as an inquest into their extradition gathered pace this week at the Lilongwe Magistrates’ Court in his home country of Malawi.
The couple are facing charges relating to the theft of R106 million purportedly through an entity called Rising Estate that allegedly took money from congregants under the guise of investing it and no monies were ever paid out to congregants.
South Africa’s National Prosecutions Agency sent Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Sibongile Mzinyathi to Malawi to present evidence regarding the couple’s finances. In the process she was cross-examined by the Bushiri’s lawyer Wakona Pita.
In an eight minute audio shared on social media after a court appearance, Bushiri accused the SA government of tampering with documents presented to court by Mzinyathi.
“What happened in court yesterday is heartbreaking. The South African witness presented evidence that was tampered with.
“The document from KPMG showed that there was no money that was sent to mine or my wife’s bank accounts from a company that scammed our church members promising to trade forex for them,” he said.
The prophet also claimed that that he had never taken any money from his church members.
“My wife and I took over $5m dollars which is about R90m and paid our members who had invested in that company and lost their monies. But SA government falsely arrested us even after we opened a criminal case against that company which scammed our congregants,” he said.
Bushiri claimed that the attacks on him were caused by xenophobia and jealousy. He said he hoped an apology would follow his persecution.
“I just want to say, it’s so heartbreaking. As a man of God, I have forgiven them and their actions. I hope if they are humans that they will apologise over such behaviour.
“We are here to expose more things and to show them that actually they did all these things because I am a foreigner in South Africa.
“My ministry was growing too big, and this was part of xenophobic jealousy and more other things,” he said. Telly Africa
He is just another con artist desparately trying to run away from the long arm of the law.