Police were waiting for tests to be conducted on medication found in the hotel room where the body of controversial businessman Sandi Majali was discovered on Sunday, a spokesperson said on Monday.
“It’s still too early to talk about the tests. We are waiting for the department of health to give us its findings which will inform the direction the investigation will take,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, Gauteng police spokesperson.
“We are investigating an inquest docket.”
The 48-year-old Majali was found dead in his room at the Quatermain Hotel in Sandton, Johannesburg, on Sunday morning.
“He stayed with us last night, and I can confirm that he was found passed away this morning,” Rosy Chilewitz, the general manager, said on Sunday evening.
Chilewitz could not give details of when Majali had checked into the hotel.
“I can’t give you any more details on that, all I can say is that he was with us last night, police are dealing with the rest,” she told the South African Press Association.
Oilgate
Majali, who was said to be in financial trouble, hit the headlines — in a story broken by the Mail & Guardian — following his role in the Oilgate saga that saw him “donate” R11-million of PetroSA’s funds to the African National Congress ahead of the 2004 elections.
PetroSA paid R15-million to Imvume in December 2003 as an “advance” on a shipment of oil condensate for which payment was not yet due and without checking whether Imvume had the ability to repay. Within days Imvume transferred R11-million to the ANC and smaller amounts to, among others, a brother of then-minerals and energy minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and a builder renovating the private home of then-social development minister Zola Skweyiya.
When Imvume failed to pay its foreign supplier in turn PetroSA obliged by paying the same amount again. PetroSA’s efforts to reclaim the money — using a lawyer who happened to be Majali’s business partner — were ineffectual.
Imvume had won large oil allocations from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after travelling to Baghdad with then-top Luthuli House officials Smuts Ngonyama, Mendi Msimang and Kgalema Motlanthe.
Mmajali was arrested in October 2010 by the police’s Commercial Crimes Unit on fraud charges and was released on bail — after directorship of mining company Kalahari Resources were changed from Brian Amos Mashile and his sister Daphne Mashile-Nkosi to a group of eight people including Majali.
The two siblings had to bring an urgent interdict before the High Court in Johannesburg to get themselves reinstated as directors of the company.
Majali was due to appear in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court again on January 18.
His three co-accused Stephan Khoza, Haralambos Sferopoulous and Elvis Bongani Ndala, recently appeared in court over their mental fitness to stand trial. – Sapa and staff reporter