Mungo Soggot
OLIVER HILL, South Africa’s most wanted white-collar fugitive, could be back home in a matter of weeks, following the rejection this week by a London court of his appeal against extradition to South Africa.
The court also torpedoed Hill’s attempts to further delay his return by denying him the right to appeal to the House of Lords, Britain’s highest court.
South African officials working with England’s Crown Prosecution Service say the high court quashed both his application to be released from prison – known as a habeas corpus application – and his appeal against a ruling last year by the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court to extradite him.
“It’s not a question of if, it’s when …” said an official who has been working on the case from South Africa.
Hill’s return would give the Reserve Bank the chance to prosecute the country’s most ambitious foreign-exchange fraud case to date. Hill is alleged to have manipulated South Africa’s dual currency system with forged Eskom bond certificates, earning himself at least R100-million.
He fled to London in 1987 to evade the charges and spent the next nine years in luxurious exile at 1 Belgravia Square. Hill last year handed control of local financial magazine Finance Week to former Financial Mail editor-at-large David Gleason for an undisclosed sum.
Hill still has a few legal avenues open which would allow him to postpone his return. Despite the court denying him leave to appeal to the House of Lords, Hill can petition the house directly in the next 14 days – in the same way that South Africans can petition the state president if a judge denies them leave to appeal to the Appellate Division in Bloemfontein.
If his direct petition fails, the British Home Secretary will sign a certificate authorising his expulsion from Britain and Hill will be flown back to South Africa. Hill could also appeal against this executive decision.
If that fails, South African lawyers working on the case say he could approach the European Court, but it is understood this appeal would not suspend the British ruling: Hill could be sent back to South Africa with his European appeal pending.
Members of Hill’s legal team have argued that the fraud charges relate to exchange control regulations, the breach of which is not an extraditable offence.
An associate of Oshy Tugendhaft, a senior partner at Johannesburg law firm Moss Morris, and Hill’s longtime lawyer, said that Hill would petition the House of Lords.