Moujtaba Joubouri pleads guilty to bribery ahead of trial over prison drug-smuggling racket, judge lifts suppression on his identity
A man who ran a drug-smuggling scheme in SA’s prisons can finally be revealed after years of secrecy – prompting him to hide behind schoolchildren outside court.
Police & Courts
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For the past four years, Moujtaba Joubouri has enjoyed the anonymity of a suppression order – and he wasn’t about to surrender that invisibility without a fight.
Having confessed to masterminding a prison drug-smuggling scam and been stripped of his privacy, Joubouri this week fled the District Court at high speed.
Covering his face with sunglasses, a Covid mask and his right hand, he barrelled through Victoria Square and narrowly avoided a collision with a group of schoolchildren.
Joubouri then hid behind the children to try to avoid an Advertiser photographer – when that didn’t work, he ran into the front lobby of the Hilton.
It was a high-profile public debut for a man who may now spend 10 years behind bars alongside the very inmates he provided with takeaway food bags filled with drugs and glue.
Joubouri, 29, of Northgate, was arrested in January 2019 and charged with having bribed Department for Correctional Services officer Michael Charles Asker.
He opted for trial while Asker, of Modbury Heights, pleaded guilty – resulting in a suppression order that banned publication of Joubouri’s identity and connection to the case.
Asker, meanwhile, asked the court for leniency, saying he took takeaway bags filled with suboxone strips – an opiod-withdrawal treatment – and glue into jail for good reason.
“He was proactive, driven, it might be put he was overly invested … (that) saw him pilloried as a ‘bleeding-heart social worker’,” his counsel told the court in March 2020.
“He was disturbed by the treatment of prisoners and felt blind bureaucracy was being put before their welfare … the seeds of his discontent were fertilised.
“He felt unappreciated, demoralised, and he weakened … this was a slow-burn crisis of faith, and he allowed himself to be prevailed upon by prisoners.”
The glue, they explained, was to reseal the food containers once the drugs had been removed.
They also conceded Asker was paid $750 for betraying his public servant duties – $500 of which he received smuggled inside an empty coffee cup.
In 2020, Judge Liesl Kudelka spared Asker an immediate prison term but ordered he serve 2 ½ years of strict home detention.
“I do think any time served in jail would be particularly harsh for you,” she said in sentencing.
“But you must understand that harshness on its own would not cause me to order home detention.
“If your offending had gone on any longer, I think home detention would have been ruled out.”
Asker completed his sentence in November 2022 – Joubouri, meanwhile, maintained he was innocent of any wrongdoing and was scheduled to face trial in October 2023.
On Tuesday, however, Aaron Almeida, for Joubouri, said his client’s position on the matter had changed and asked he be re-arraigned.
Joubouri then pleaded guilty to having bribed Asker on March 1, 2018, at Oakden.
Mr Almeida asked the court to adjourn sentencing submissions, saying his client’s barrister, Andrew Culshaw, would appear at that hearing.
Chief Judge Michael Evans remanded Joubouri on continuing bail to face sentencing submissions in June.
He also granted The Advertiser’s application to revoke the suppression order that covered both Joubouri’s identity and his connection to Asker.
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