The wife of South Africa’s intelligence minister was convicted yesterday of drug trafficking and for using young women as mules to smuggle cocaine into the country.

Sheryl Cwele, who is married to state security minister Siyabonga Cwele, was convicted along with Nigerian Frank Nabolisa in the High Court in the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg. Both had pleaded not guilty.

Judge Piet Koen said the two had clearly worked together to recruit two women as drug mules, according to the Sapa news agency.

Mr Koen questioned Ms Cwele’s defence that she did not know the women would be transporting drugs.

“On the probabilities, why recruit a person and pay them just to fetch a parcel when there are courier services available?” he said.

“The irresistible inference is that (Cwele) knew what (the women) would be required to do for two weeks at the remuneration she offered to them.”

The verdict had originally been expected last Wednesday, but was delayed after prosecutors sought to introduce new evidence, which the judge refused.

Ms Cwele was arrested in January 2010 and has been out on bail. Sentencing was set for today, when the pair face minimum jail terms of 15 years.

Allegations of Ms Cwele’s drug trafficking surfaced in 2009 after the arrest of Tessa Beetge, a South African woman caught in Brazil with 10 kilos of cocaine worth almost $300,000 (€202,000).