Agusta won't be called

2003-11-18 12:34

George - The state does not intend to call Italian count Riccardo Agusta as a witness in the corruption trial of former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and David Malatsi, the regional court in George heard on Tuesday.

Agusta last month paid a million rand fine after conceding in a plea bargain agreement with the Scorpions that he "unlawfully and corruptly" gave a R400 000 donation through the two men to the New National Party.

The money, he said, was meant to remove obstacles to provincial approval of his R500m Roodefontein golf estate development at Plettenberg Bay.

Scorpions prosecutor Bruce Morrison told the court on Monday that Agusta has "already been dealt with.

"It is not the state's intention to call him as a witness in these proceedings."

Morrison's statement was in line with the plea bargain agreement, which recorded that the state would not require Agusta's further involvement "in any way" in the prosecution.

However, it does not rule out the possibility of either of Malatsi or Marais's legal teams calling the count as a defence witness.

Morrison told the court he intended leading evidence from two "camps", the Roodefontein developers, backed by the Plettenberg Bay municipality, and environmentalists, to indicate the state of affairs when the money was handed over in April 2002.

He said the state would show that the province's issuing of a positive record of decision - in other words, approval of the project - was not "apt" at the time payments were made.

Palazzolo

At the time, Malatsi was the provincial environment and development MEC.

The first witness in the trial, environmental consultant Gavin Hellstrom, told the court he was hired in 1998 to do a scoping report on a proposed seniors village at Roodefontein.

At that time alleged Mafia kingpin Vito Palazzolo was "giving the instructions", he said.

He never got paid for the work, and had no idea what had happened to the project.

"It just fell flat; it just fizzled out," he said.

Two years later he was asked to be part of a professional team to develop the golf estate on Roodefontein, and held an on-site meeting with a group that included Palazzolo's eldest son Christian von Palace Kolbatshenko.

Kolbatshenko was a director of Centaur Studs, a company which later changed its name to Count Agusta Golf and Equestrian Estates.

Hellstrom said he had sought to follow international best practice by taking a "bottom-up" approach, beginning with an assessment of the natural environment and only then considering what development would be appropriate.

This was the first time he had been given a "clean slate", and the power to determine where, how and when the development should take place.

- SAPA