SA wants Harksen back

2003-04-11 17:50

Cape Town - The justice department wants convicted swindler Juergen Harksen to be sent back to South Africa to stand trial - and is confident that he will.

Harksen, who has been accused of defrauding hundreds of investors of €32m, was jailed on Friday for six years and nine months by a court in the north German city of Hamburg.

He was extradited from South Africa in October last year, even though he faced multimillion rand fraud charges here as well.

Justice ministry spokesperson Paul Setsetse said South African authorities were given an assurance at the time that he would be returned if required.

"We are still confident that we will get him... We are not anticipating any difficulties in getting him back.

"We are happy ourselves that across the ocean, justice has taken its course. However, we would still like to have him back ourselves because there is unfinished business he left behind."

German law does not allow the extradition of German citizens.

"But what the ministers of safety and security [Charles Nqakula] as well as justice [Penuell Maduna] are going to do, is to hold discussions with the German authorities with a view to another way of getting Mr Harksen back into South Africa to stand trial."

Among the issues that would have to be decided were whether he should come back while serving his German sentence, or at its conclusion, and whether if he was convicted in South Africa, the two sentences should run concurrently.

These discussions would take place "in due course".

The Hamburg court, acting in terms of the extradition agreement, dealt with only three of the swindles Harksen was accused of, AFP reported earlier on Friday.

German detectives had been building their case against the investment adviser, known as "Mr Money", for nine years while he was living in Cape Town.

In all, he is suspected of persuading naive European investors to part with more than €32.2m by promising returns of up to 1 300% on their investments.

Among those taken in by his charisma and flamboyant lifestyle were companies, doctors and celebrities such as musician Dieter Bohlen, dubbed by some as Germany's "Prince of Pop".

The cases brought in court against Harksen, 42, focused on three people from whom he extorted €17.5m between 1990 and 1992.

Last month, Harksen himself boasted that he had swindled as much as €50.4m.

"My tales were extremely adventurous," he said. "The clients wanted things to be told wonderfully. Once greed is aroused, it makes people blind, it paralyses their common sense."

Before fleeing to South Africa at the end of 1993, Harksen and his wife Jeanette spent lavishly on expensive cars and extravagant nights.

The court sentenced Jeanette Harksen to a suspended two-year jail term for complicity in fraud. Her husband was barred from working as an investment advisor for five years.

In South Africa, where he lived an equally extravagant lifestyle in Cape Town, he achieved notoriety with claims that he bankrolled the Democratic Alliance in the province.

His friendship with DA provincial leader Gerald Morkel led to Morkel's ousting from the party post. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA