Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will have to fight another day — her and her financial adviser Addy Moolman’s Pretoria High Court appeal against their criminal convictions was postponed on Monday.
Moolman’s legal team had requested the postponement. Madikizela-Mandela’s team was ready to go ahead.
Judge Eberhardt Bertelsmann said there were significant conflicts of fact in the versions of the two appellants and it would be in the interest of justice that the court had the benefit of hearing both the parties at the same hearing.
This was a complex and intricate matter with a considerable record, he said.
The appeal was postponed to June 21.
Moolman asked for a postponement, as his counsel had only recently received funds and had not yet prepared for the appeal.
Counsel for Madikizela-Mandela opposed the postponement, saying that it not only had cost implications, but she would also have to wait longer to hear the outcome of her appeal.
The judge said although Moolman had not prepared his application for a postponement timeously and according to the court rules, refusing to postpone the appeal would mean that he would probably be incarcerated and would have to apply for bail, facing further expenses and the possible loss of his job.
Bertelsmann criticised Moolman’s attorney for not acting earlier while knowing that there were no funds available for the appeal and ordered that the attorney could not claim costs from any party for the day’s appearance.
Madikizela-Mandela was in April last year found guilty on 43 charges of fraud and 25 of theft of more than R900 000 after obtaining fraudulent bank loans from Saambou for ghost employees of the ANC Women’s League, of which she was then president.
Moolman was found guilty of 58 counts of fraud and 25 of theft.
Madikizela-Mandela was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, with one year suspended, by magistrate Peet Johnson in the Pretoria Regional Court. Moolman was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, of which two years were suspended.
Both were released on bail pending their appeal.
Grounds for Madikizela-Mandela’s appeal included that the magistrate had erred by failing to find that Moolman had misled her.
She told the court during her trial she had signed documents without checking them and Moolman duped her into taking part in the fraud. — Sapa