Jeannette to return home?
2002-11-02 16:10
Hamburg - The wife of alleged fraudster Juergen Harksen, Jeannette, is planning to return voluntarily to Germany from South Africa despite charges pending against her, the weekly magazine Focus reports in its latest issue.
The magazine cited Harksen's attorney, Gerhard Strate, as saying that "his wife will come to Germany in the foreseeable future".
Hamburg prosecutors have filed charges against Jeannette as an
accessory to the alleged financial fraud carried out by her husband in the early 1990s. But there is no warrant for her extradition.
Harksen, after nine years of refuge in South Africa, was extradited to Germany earlier this week and arrived in Hamburg for pre-trial detention on October 31. His wife stayed behind in South Africa with their three sons, aged 9, 11 and 15.
On Friday, Hamburg justice officials said that the earliest
possible date for a trial is in January 2003.
The 41-year-old Harksen, from the northernmost German city of
Flensburg, faces 218 counts of having tricked 62 investors out of
some $32m, luring them with promises of up to 1 300% return on their money.
But the local daily Hamburger Abendblatt reported on Saturday that the charge sheet, when it comes to trial, may be vastly reduced, depending on South Africa's actions.
The paper noted that South African Justice Minister Penuell
Maduna, in approving Harksen's extradition, had based the decision on the cases of only three of the 62 cheated investors.
Under extradition treaty terms, the extraditing country can
determine which cases should be prosecuted, the paper said.
"We are still awaiting documentation from Cape Town," Hamburg
prosecutor Ruediger Bagger said. "It appears that the South
Africans will only permit those charges which victims have
testified about in Cape Town. This would leave only three victims."
Even then, the sum of money involving those three comes to
around 15 million euros, or nearly half the alleged total. Nor
would the lower number of counts change much the prospect of
possible punishment of up to 15 years, Bagger added.
The Abendblatt report said that many of those in Germany whom
Harksen is accused of having cheated may be relieved if the number
of cases to be prosecuted is reduced.
This would save them the embarrassment of being named publicly
as having fallen for Harksen's promises of fantastic returns on
their investments.
Meanwhile, Harksen on his first full day in Hamburg detention,
was delivered to the prison hospital, complaining of pains.
Abendblatt cited another defence attorney, Leonore Gottschalk-
Solger, as saying that Harksen was "physically in poor condition"
and that he missed his wife and sons.
"He is a family man," she said. - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA