Attorney gets 60 days grace

2003-09-05 19:04

Cape Town - Former attorney Hoosain Mohamed on Friday won a two month delay to the start of his trial on embezzlement charges.

A postponement to November 3 was granted by acting Cape High Court Judge Joe van der Westhuizen, after an application by Mohamed's senior counsel, William King.

Mohamed faces embezzlement charges involving the Road Accident Fund.

The purpose of the delay was to give Mohamed more time to obtain funding for his defence, from the curator of his frozen estate.

With Mohamed in the dock facing similar charges were Ahmed Chohan, Mohamed's former partner in the now defunct attorney's practice, Mohamed and Associates, and their paralegal, Michael John Mulligan.

King told the court Mohamed's assets were frozen by High Court order two years ago, when Mohamed was ordered to make full disclosure of his assets, and was also interdicted from using funds without permission from the curator.

Mohamed had tried unsuccessfully to challenge the constitutionality of the disclosure order.

He had since made full disclosure, but despite this the curator in control of the frozen assets had declined to provide funding for Mohamed's defence, King told the court.

King said the defence, without funding, had two options - to withdraw from the case, or to secure a postponement in order to approach the curator.

The application for a postponement was opposed by Ben Avenant, for the State, who said Mohamed had brought his own financial crisis on himself, by trying to challenge the High Court order that compelled him to make full disclosure to the curator about his assets.

Mohamed had finally made full disclosure of funds amounting to millions of rands that were hidden in Switzerland and India.

As a result of his full disclosure, the curator was in fact willing to release frozen funding for Mohamed's defence - on condition the hidden funds were urgently repatriated back to South Africa.

The judge said the postponement was in the interests of justice and the public, and it was unlikely that the issues would be as complex as King would have it, nor as simple as contended by Avenant.

- SAPA