The R100 000 bail granted to parliamentary travel scam suspect Soraya Beukes was suspended on Thursday, after allegations that she had given false information to enable her to go to Mozambique.
Scorpions prosecutor Ben Avenant alleged in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court that her purpose was to abscond. Beukes is the owner of Business and Executive Travel.
Scorpions senior investigator Kobus Roelofse told the court the falsities had come to light after he had approached a hotel proprietor in Maputo.
At Avenant’s request, magistrate Hennie le Roux suspended Beuke’s bail pending a decision on Friday, and explained that the Criminal Procedure Act permitted the suspension in the circumstances.
Le Roux ordered that Beukes be held overnight either at the Caledon Square or Table View police cells.
Avenant alleged Beukes had on three occasions furnished false information about the reasons for her intended trip to Maputo — twice to the court itself during abandoned applications for the relaxation of her bail conditions, and once to the Scorpions. The bail relaxation would have enabled her to travel to Maputo.
Her reason for her intended trip was that she had an invitation to a business meeting scheduled for September 28 with a Maputo hotel proprietor, to discuss a viability study for a client who wished to invest in the hotel. For this study, she was to have earned about R20 000 a month.
Avenant alleged the hotel proprietor had been misled into believing that Beukes was in fact the investor, and not that she was to do a feasibility test for an investor.
For this reason, the proprietor had withdrawn the invitation an hour after e-mailing it to Beukes, Avenant alleged.
In between her two abandoned applications to the court for the relaxation of her bail conditions, she had also approached the Scorpions directly with the same false information.
Thus at the times she had approached both the court and the Scorpions, she had been aware that the invitation to Maputo was no longer valid.
Avenant alleged these were attempts by her to abscond while she had serious criminal charges pending.
”I cannot think of a better reason to revoke her bail.”
Avenant said false information and the failure of a suspect to play open cards was highly significant to a bail court.
Defence attorney Pinda Njokweni countered that Beukes had a fundamental right to freedom of movement, entrenched by the Constitution, and that no law could limit any such right.
He contended that the state had failed to prove Beukes was a flight risk, and had not justified its application to revoke her bail. – Sapa