Former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and his co-accused David Malatsi on Monday pleaded not guilty to corruption charges related to the Roodefontein golf development.
They face charges in connection with a R400 000 “donation” by Italian count Riccardo Agusta to the New National Party in 2002.
Agusta has said the donation was meant to pave the way for provincial approval of his R500-million Roodefontein golf estate development at Plettenberg Bay, which was to include a driving range, equestrian centre and five-star hotel.
Appearing before regional magistrate Andre le Grange in the George Regional Court on Monday, Malatsi also pleaded not guilty to fraud and theft charges, one of them related to an accommodation claim he made while attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
An amended charge sheet added one more corruption charge to the two against Malatsi.
It claims that he took a sum of R100 000, which Agusta claimed earlier this year was a personal loan, as a reward for “having committed an act in excess of his powers”.
The prosecution is effectively claiming this was a reward for getting Roodefontein approved.
In court on Monday, Marais and Malatsi were seated in specially placed soft chairs behind their advocates in the well of the court, and not in the hard wooden dock.
Marais, wearing a red tie, and with a red handkerchief peeping from his breast pocket, appeared relaxed and cheerful and chatted with his advocate as he waited for proceedings to get under way.
Marais’s advocate, Craig Webster, said his client chose not to state the basis of his defence or to make any admissions at this stage.
Also in court was advocate Dirk Bakker, who is holding a watching brief for the New National Party, and a legal representative of the Western Cape provincial government, also holding a watching brief.
The court adjourned soon after the pleadings for a site inspection at Roodefontein.
Marais and Malatsi are on bail of R10 000 each after being arrested by the Scorpions earlier this year.
Senior Scorpions prosecutor Bruce Morrison has more than 60 witnesses on his list, but has declined to say whether Agusta will be among those he will call to the stand.
Nor would he say whether he intends calling NNP leader and Marais’s successor in the premiership Marthinus van Schalkwyk, whom Marais says knew about the money from the very start.
The hearing is provisionally scheduled to last two weeks, after which it will move to Cape Town. — Sapa
Marais and Malatsi on trial