/ 2 October 2008

Ruling reserved in J Arthur Brown bail bid

Former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown should be sent for 30 days’ mental observation, a Scorpions prosecutor told a Cape Town magistrate on Thursday.

Bruce Morrison was arguing against Brown’s bid to apply for bail in the Antheru Trust matter, where he faces charges of fraud, theft and money-laundering involving about R700 000.

Morrison said Brown’s trial in another case had been pushed back from September to November because his legal team had claimed they were unable to get proper instructions because of his mental state.

Brown was diagnosed earlier this year as suffering from an acute stress disorder and ”a major depressive episode”.

Morrison told the court that if Brown was unfit to stand trial, he would also be unfit to take part in a bail application.

It was in his own interests and the interests of justice that he be sent for observation.

He also said Brown had filed an application with the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) after the Cape High Court rejected the former Fidentia boss’s challenge to the constitutionality of the Antheru arrest warrant.

It was an abuse of the legal process to raise issues in the magistrate’s court that had already been dealt with by the high court, and Brown should not be allowed to seek bail while the SCA application was still to be decided.

”He’s not entitled … to get in via the back door,” Morrison said.

However, Brown’s attorney, Rashaad Khan, said his client had merely been found ”temporarily unfit” well over a month ago, and Morrison was acting maliciously in asking the court to refer him to an institution.

Brown was no longer medically unfit.

”The state has tried every means in the book to keep Mr Brown in prison … it’s actually shocking,” Khan said.

He said Brown was withdrawing his application to the SCA, though a similar application by his wife, Susan, would stand.

Khan said after the hearing that this was ”just to remove any doubt” in the face of the state’s challenge.

The lawfulness of the warrant was a separate issue, and did not affect the bail application.

Magistrate Justhree Steyn said he would deliver his ruling on whether the application could go ahead on October 9. — Sapa