Shepherd Bushiri's co-accused in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - The Pretoria Magistrate’s Court yesterday granted a final postponement to the State in the case against the co-accused in the R102 million fraud case of fugitive prophet Shepherd Bushiri.
Landiwe Ntlokwana Sindani and others appeared in court, sans the prophet and his wife Mary. However, they were joined by two other accused who were recently added to the matter.
Nomalarvasagie Reddy and a KwaZulu-Natal businessman Sateesh Isseri were added as co-accused following their appearance in court on September 15.
The duo were granted R25 000 bail each and given strict bail conditions to hand in their passports and to report once a week to a Durban police station.
They are similarly facing charges of fraud, money laundering and theft.
Yesterday, the State requested a postponement for Treasury to furnish it with a forensic report after it picked up certain issues which it said would be concluded in November.
In addition, the State said it still required further time to draft the indictment as another suspect would be added to the case as a warrant of arrest had been issued for them to appear in court.
The State said although the extradition application for Bushiri and his wife from Malawi was ongoing, the prosecution was able to proceed with the case without them.
Defence counsel for the accused stressed that the matter had been proceeding for close to four years with repeated postponements which were prejudicial to the accused.
The defence argued that the repeated delays were tantamount to injustice and requested the magistrate to rule for a final postponement should the State request further adjournments.
The presiding magistrate, in granting the long postponement, stressed that everything had to be ready to proceed come January 25. Should there be further delays, he would institute an investigation in terms of Section 32 A of the Criminal Procedure Act for the court to determine if such were undue.
Should the court find undue delays, there were several options, including for the matter to be postponed with specific terms for the State.
Following the group appearance, Sindani applied to Magistrate Thandi Theledi for a relaxation of her bail conditions. Sindani, granted R100 000 bail on November 4, 2020, and given strict bail conditions to report to a police station twice a week and not to travel out of the country, said that the conditions hampered her ability to work as an independent financial adviser.
In an affidavit, she said she had not attended the funeral of her brother-in-law or other family emergencies, as the prosecuting team had numerous times responded late to her request.
She said as a financial adviser it was also difficult to service clients via zoom and it had become costly to fly to and fro to report to the two allocated police stations. However, the State stressed that the conditions were set for a reason.
Magistrate Theledi ruled the conditions would remain, but Sindani would now report to the police station on the first Thursday and last Thursday of every month.
Pretoria News