OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 1.20pm.
FORMER anti-apartheid cleric Allan Boesak was convicted on Wednesday morning of stealing nearly R500000 from a Swedish donor agency and R240000 donated by musician Paul Simon for victims of apartheid.
He was also found guilty of stealing R332000 from the Urban Discretionary Fund of his Foundation for Peace and Justice (FPJ).
Judge John Foxcroft found the cleric guilty of the theft charges in the course of a lengthy judgment which was continuing into the early afternoon at the Cape High Court.
The 51-year-old cleric faced a total of 27 charges of theft and fraud on Wednesday relating to his FPJ work.
Boesak, a personal friend of President Nelson Mandela, was visibly shaken as the judge pronounced the guilty verdicts.
The judge said Boesak stole the funds donated by Swedish donor agency Sida for the production of educational videos ahead of South Africa’s election in 1994.
Judge Foxcroft said that instead of making the 12 videos on voter education as he had promised, Boesak used the money to build a recording studio for his wife, Elna, a former television presenter.
He said it is clear that in the case involving monies donated by United States musician Simon, Boesak had appropriated the money destined for poor children for his own purposes “and in doing so he is guilty of theft”.
Boesak was acquitted on all other charges.
He was originally charged with 32 counts of fraud and theft but Foxcroft agreed to drop five in December after Boesak’s former accountant admitted to implicating him to cover up his own crimes.
The accountant is now serving seven years after being convicted on similar charges to Boesak.