At aged 48 Ngango who has been in jail for over one year claims to be innocent of the act of making victims for his network of criminals involved in the fabrication and delivery of false passports to persons to travel abroad.

He has practiced this for a long time before the incident that led to his arrest and detention. His profession of a gardener made people to trust him blindly and he took advantage of this to put these people in difficulties by making them believe they would be rendered good service.  He however pleads guilty for receiving money destined for such dirty deals from a lady who had promised him 150.000 if she could only obtain a visa. He is in charge of recruiting victims for the network and giving then information on the possibility for them to obtain passports in the shortest possible time. He acts as a relay between the customers and the members of this network which has deprived many of their hard earned savings. To this the State Counsel says enough is enough with lies from such a dangerous man who instead of taking care of flowers in a garden finds himself with traveler’s passports. He says the innocent looks and soft spoken attitude of Ngango is meant to blind the vigilance of the court for him to go free. At his age the gardener is supposed to set a good example but he and a host of others have chosen the nasty road of fraud and should be seen and treated as nasty criminals. The judge therefore refuses on this score the accused pleading guilty for only part of the allegations levied against him. On his part the State Counsel says the accused has simply made a fool of the court by pretending to be innocent of a crime he knows he committed and has more information about. It was thus said that the accused had very bad intentions and to these reactions Ngongo admits he lied and so apologized saying that he was guilty of the charges but had tried to hide the truth. The State Counsel then request that he be allowed to serve his prison term to the finish and not consider setting him free for he can be too dangerous for the society if he is free. Meanwhile the judge sees the accused as being consistently inconsistent in his proposals and thus proof that he is a bad case and needs to be handled with care. This he supports with articles 74, 205, 114 line 2 of the penal code. His case will be adjourned to July 28 for deliberations.  

Irene Aweneg