Former Public Protector Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane has been acquitted of all criminal wrongdoing after the State’s perjury case against her collapsed in the Pretoria Regional Court.
Mkhwebane confirmed the news herself to Africa Daily on Wednesday afternoon.
“Yes confirmed I have been acquitted,” Mkhwebane said I one line.
The court brought an end to a prosecution that has trailed Mkhwebane since her explosive 2017 investigation into the apartheid-era Absa/Bankorp bailout.
The State had already withdrawn the founding and main perjury charge in August.
Because the four remaining counts were directly linked to that primary allegation, the withdrawal gutted the entire case. On Wednesday, that criminal chapter closed with an acquittal.
For Mkhwebane, who now serves as patron of the BM Foundation, the acquittal marks the end of a seven-year legal war that cost her office, her finances and her reputation.
The case stemmed from allegations that she had concealed meetings during the Absa/Bankorp investigation.
Supporters, including the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, have long argued the foundational evidence never existed, pointing to records and official security footage they say proves Mkhwebane was working from the Public Protector’s Cape Town office at the time of the alleged meetings.
The Absa/Bankorp controversy formed a core charge in the Parliamentary Section 194 Committee inquiry that ultimately led to her impeachment and removal as Public Protector in 2023.
In July 2019, a Constitutional Court majority judgment penned by Justices Sisi Khampepe and Leona Theron upheld a punitive personal costs order against her arising from the same litigation, ordering her to pay from her own pocket on a punitive scale.
The criminal case was also linked to an ongoing High Court application by the Legal Practice Council seeking to have her struck from the roll of advocates.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Busisiwe Mkhwebane Foundation said justice had finally prevailed.
“Today marks a significant moment in a long and difficult legal chapter,” the Foundation said. “The perjury matter arose from the controversy surrounding her investigation into the Absa/Bankorp matter. In August 2026, the State withdrew the principal charge. The remaining proceedings were postponed to Wednesday. Today that criminal chapter has ended with her acquittal.”
The Foundation framed the prosecution as part of a chain — from investigation, to court review, to impeachment, to prosecution — designed to punish a Public Protector who challenged powerful economic interests.
“For Advocate Mkhwebane, this has never been only about a courtroom. It has been about a principle: whether those entrusted with public power can challenge powerful interests without being destroyed for doing so,” the statement said.
The Foundation acknowledged that courts had previously criticised aspects of her conduct in the Absa/Bankorp litigation, including findings concerning her affidavits and the manner in which the investigation was conducted, but said those findings could not sustain criminal liability.
“Those findings remain part of the public record. But criminal allegations must be tested in a criminal court, against evidence and according to the law. Today, that test has ended in acquittal.”
The Foundation said Mkhwebane had endured an extraordinary campaign of pressure and survived it.
“They could challenge her. They could investigate her. They could take her to court. They could impose personal costs. They could attempt to silence her. They could not make her surrender her principles,” the statement read.
