The Democratic Alliance has agreed to make an undisclosed payout to the trustees of convicted fraudster Jurgen Harksen’s estate to settle a donation to the party by the mysterious ”Hans”.
The trustees were to have taken the DA to the Cape High Court next week over the DM99 000 (about R450 000) which they claimed was part of more than R1-million Harksen said he gave to the party and its former Western Cape leader Gerald Morkel.
The DA and the trustees said in a joint statement on Friday that in order to avoid protracted litigation, the trustees would be ”paid an amount in full and final settlement of all and any claims”.
Each party would pay its own costs, and would not make any other public comment on the matter.
Former Democratic Alliance MEC and fundraiser in the Western Cape Leon Markowitz told the Desai Commission that a tall man with grey curly hair and a ”thick German accent” he knew only as Hans gave him the money in 2001.
However, the commission concluded in its report that ”Hans” did not exist, and that the donor was Harksen or one of his associates.
At the time of the donation Harksen had been declared insolvent, though he was still accessing money from secret sources to finance a lavish lifestyle and buy influence.
The commission drew the ”inevitable conclusion” that Markowitz did not consider Harksen’s insolvency to be a bar to association with the fraudster. Rather, the commission said, the notion of ”Hans” was raised as an afterthought in the hope of distancing the fundraisers from allegations of improper conduct.
An independent audit commissioned by the DA was unable to establish the source of the money.
The trustees have previously recovered some of the millions Harksen took from investors through the auction of two luxury homes he owned in the Cape Town suburb of Constantia, and by selling cars and jewellery.
Harksen is currently serving a six-year jail sentence in Germany after being convicted of defrauding hundreds of investors of 32-million euros (about R250-million). – Sapa