'Spy-gate' PI gets trial date

2008-01-08 20:17

Cape Town - Mossel Bay private investigator Niel van Heerden is to go on trial on fraud and perjury charges at the end of March, it emerged on Tuesday.

Van Heerden, 55, a former senior policeman, was arrested at his home on December 31 and released on R2 000 bail.

He appeared again briefly in the local magistrates court on Tuesday morning, when Magistrate Retha Pretorius set March 31 and April 1 as the trial dates.

Van Heerden's advocate Johann Nortje said the defence team had asked for an early date because it wanted Van Heerden cleared of all the allegations against him by the time he appeared before the Erasmus inquiry into Cape Town's spy row.

He said they were grateful to Pretorius for giving the case preferential dates.

Van Heerden's firm - he runs the Mossel Bay franchise of George Fivaz and Associates - was involved in last year's spy drama, and in a probe into the murder of Stellenbosch student Inge Lotz.

Fivaz, himself a former national commissioner of police, said in a statement after the arrest that Van Heerden rejected all the charges.

The perjury charge related to a statement made by Van Heerden during a bail application by Phillip du Toit, the Fivaz investigator at the centre of the spy row.

The fraud charge related to an allegation that Van Heerden tampered with a document related to voice stress analyses conducted on Du Toit.

A third charge related to a "wrong" office address appearing on a statement made by Van Heerden in December.

- SAPA