Steuart Wright in East London
SUN City supremo Sol Kerzner is safe from prosecution for bribery — at least for the next seven months
Business Age, an overseas magazine, has suggested that Kerzner could escape prosecution following a secret deal with President Nelson Mandela and Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, who the magazine said was a political friend of Kerzner’s.
However, Transkei Attorney General Christo Nel responded this week that he was determined to bring Kerzner to trial. He denied that he was under any pressure to abandon the case.
Spokesmen for the offices of Mandela and Mbeki failed to return calls or respond to faxed questions on the issue.
Kerzner is alleged to have channelled a R2-million bribe through former Cape Town mayor David Bloomberg to former Transkei prime minister George Matanzima for exclusive gambling rights in the homeland in 1986. Kerzner admitted to the Harms Commission of Inquiry in 1989 that he had bribed Matanzima.
Nel said he hoped to “make or break” the bribery case against Kerzner within the next seven months. He was faced with the daunting task of virtually reconstructing the case, but he hoped to reach a decision on whether to prosecute by June next year.
A claim by Business Age that Kerzner could be arrested before mid-1995 was exaggerated, Nel added. Kerzner could be arrested now, he explained, but the case was not ready to go to trial. The original investigating team had dissolved; two members had retired and a third was involved in another case. New investigators would have to go through more than 23 volumes of documentation to familiarise themselves with the case, he pointed out. — Ecna