The Cape High Court on Monday declared valid a warrant for the re-arrest of Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown on alleged embezzlement charges involving the Antheru Trust.
It dismissed with costs Brown’s urgent application for his immediate release from custody.
Brown, who had been on R1-million bail in the Fidentia embezzlement case, and a further R2 000 bail on similar charges involving the Transport, Education and Training Authority (Teta), was recently re-arrested after his wife, Susan, secretly left the country for Australia.
She did that knowing that a warrant for her arrest in the Antheru case was merely being held in abeyance by the Scorpions.
Judge Burton Fourie said the Susan’s conduct in secretly leaving the country, with full knowledge of her pending arrest, gave the impression she and her husband had not been in good faith when, with their lawyers, they had negotiated with Scorpions senior counsel Bruce Morrison for the warrant for her arrest to be stayed.
With her disappearance, the earlier assessment that Brown himself was not a flight risk had changed drastically, the judge said.
He said Susan had skipped the country on a cancelled passport, that the air tickets for her and their children had been bought by an unnamed third party, and that the children had been removed from school without prior notification to the school authorities.
Fourie added: ”I find it strange that the one person able to give a proper explanation for her absence — Mrs Brown herself — has failed to do so.
”She filed an affidavit stating reasons for her absence, and the Scorpions responded to it, but there has been a deafening silence from her concerning the Scorpions’ response.
”In my view, the one compelling reason for Brown himself to remain in the country — the presence of his wife and children — can no longer be considered in his favour.”
The judge rejected Brown’s claim that Morrison had given a definite undertaking not to arrest his wife.
He also rejected Brown’s claim that the warrant for his arrest had been obtained in an irregular manner, and that this rendered both the warrant itself as well as Brown’s arrest unlawful. — Sapa