Exhibits 'doctored' - claim

2003-11-03 21:23

Umtata - An Eastern Cape man told the High Court here on Monday the claims he submitted to medical aid scheme companies were not false.

Aggrey Malinge Sihlobo has pleaded not guilty before Judge Lusindiso Pakade to 1 745 counts of fraud related to claims of more than R700 000 he submitted to various companies for patients he allegedly treated at his Lady Frere surgery between 1999 and 2001.

He is also charged with unlawfully dispensing or selling scheduled drugs and presenting a false homoeopath's diploma.

In his second day of testimony, Sihlobo said he submitted these claims because his patients received medication from him.

Sihlobo said the documents seized by police were original claims he had submitted to medical aid schemes, remittance advice forms, a register of cash-paying patients and a register of medical aid scheme members.

There were also documents relating to medication he bought from various companies.

Some documents 'are a blur'

He told the court the duplicates of these documents, which were handed to him, appeared to have been "doctored".

Sihlobo said he could not rely on those documents for his defence.

He told the court his difficulty in presenting his case was that all documents presented before court were purportedly reproduced from his original documents.

"Some of the documents are a blur and it is difficult to believe they originated from my original documents seized by the investigators" he said.

Sihlobo said that on the re-produced documents, some had black thick lines. Some looked as though some words had been pasted on the documents. Some documents had perforated lines.

He said all the above features did not exist on the original documents.

"It makes it difficult for me to confirm to this court that the documents before me are the documents I submitted for claims.

"I do not want to waste the court's time going through all the 20 suspicious documents in front of me."

Sihlobo told the court that, from what he could see, signatures on all the claims forms before him appeared to have been pasted on the so-called claim forms he allegedly submitted for claims.

The trial continues.

- SAPA