Pretoria – Allegations that South Africa had supplied weapons to Russia during the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict have been proved to be false after a probe by a three-member independent panel chaired by Judge Phineas Mojapelo.
During a televised address on Sunday night SA President Cyril Ramaphosa said: “From its investigation, the panel found no evidence that any cargo of weapons was loaded for export onto the ship Lady R.”
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“During the course of its work, the panel visited Simonstown naval base and obtained evidence under oath from nearly 50 people in every relevant component of government,” President Ramahosa said.
He said more than 100 documents were submitted to the panel for examination.
“A number of entities and persons that had publicly claimed to have information on this matter were invited to make submissions to the panel,” said President Ramaphosa.
“Many of those invited either failed to do so or said they had no independent knowledge of the relevant facts.
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“From its investigation, the panel found no evidence that any cargo of weapons was loaded for export onto the ship Lady R.
“The panel found that there was no evidence to support the claim that the ship transported weapons from South Africa destined for Russia.”
President Ramphosa said the panel established that the ship docked at Simonstown late last year to deliver equipment ordered for the South African National Defence Force.
The equipment was ordered in 2018 by Armscor, the countrys arms procurement company.
“In terms of the contract for the supply of the arms, neither Armscor nor the South African National Defence Force had any control over the means through which the supplier of the ordered equipment would transport them to South Africa,” said President Ramaphosa.
“In its report, the panel outlined the circumstances that led to the docking of the vessel in Simonstown, as well as the type of goods supplied and the reasons why the goods were unloaded at the time they were offloaded.”
The other members of the panel were Advocate Leah Gcabashe SC and Enver Surty.
“I wish to thank the panel for the considerable amount of work it undertook in a relatively short period of time,” said President Ramaphosa.
