TUESDAY, 12.30AM:
SOUTH African Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt was accused of making racist remarks about former Sarfu vice-president Brian van Rooyen, author of the Van Rooyen dossier about the state of South African rugby, when he took the stand in the Pretoria High Court on Monday.
Luyt was confronted with allegations that he had told Sports Minster Steve Tshwete: “Van Rooyen is a hotnot. You cannot trust a hotnot,” during a cellphone conversation in December 1996.
Defence advocate Wim Trengove put it to Luyt that he had misled the court when he claimed he had only become aware of the Van Rooyen dossier as a result of a newspaper report in December 1996 and that he had only contacted Sports Director-General Mthobi Tyamzashe in January 1997.
Luyt denied making the telephone call or racist comments.
He also claimed the Van Rooyen dossier was vague and defamatory and that Tshwete and Tyamzashe had reneged on an agreement to provide Sarfu with details of allegations against the union.
Luyt was the first high-profile person to take the stand in Sarfu’s high court application to have the Browde commission of inquiry into the state of South African rugby declared unlawful.