/ 12 April 1999

NYATI TRIES TO FOOL COURT

DISGRACED political analyst Eugene Nyati may face additional fraud charges on top of those of attempted murder and contempt of court when he returns from the Far East later this month. He apparently attempted to mislead court officials into thinking that he applied to be excused from court last week. Nyati was supposed to appear in the Pretoria regional court on one attempted murder charge on April 1 after he allegedly shot an employee in the foot during a salary dispute. Nyati sent a fax to the courts claiming that he was unable to attend his hearing as he was in Nepal en route to Bangkok. Nyati dated the fax March 31 and claimed that he had just missed his connecting flight to Bangkok. The automatic fax ID at the top of the letter indicates, however, that the letter was actually only sent through from the Hotel Equitorial at 1:18pm on April 1 four hours after Nyati was supposed to be in court.