TV appearance by Angelo Agrizzi pushes state to call in its own doctors

02 November 2021 - 13:50
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Former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi when he made his only appearance in his corruption trial with co-accused Vincent Smith in October last year. The state informed the court on Tuesday it will medically examine Agrizzi.
Former Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi when he made his only appearance in his corruption trial with co-accused Vincent Smith in October last year. The state informed the court on Tuesday it will medically examine Agrizzi.
Image: ANTONIO MUCHAVE/SOWETAN

The state is set to perform its own medical examination on corruption accused Angelo Agrizzi following his appearance on a television show in September despite a medical report from his team saying he is not fit for trial.

The Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crime Court  on Tuesday postponed the case  until December 2.

The National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Investigating Directorate (ID) spokesperson Sindisiwe Seboka said the postponement was to allow for the medical examination to take place.

“We have to get a medical examiner to come and assess him even though he has provided a detailed prognosis — through his own doctor — as to why it is that he had not been able to stand trial,” Seboka said.

She said it was because of Agrizzi’s continued absences that the state had separated his trial from that of his former co-accused, former parliamentarian Vincent Smith.

“We have seen that, even though he has not been able to come to court many times, he has been doing television interviews which puts us in a situation where we wondered if the medical certificate he provided is a true reflection of whether he is able to stand trial,” Seboka said.

She said before coming to court, Agrizzi’s legal team had advised he was willing to do the examination.

Smith also appeared before the court, which was sitting in an outside corridor as courtrooms were dark due to a power outage in the court building.

His case was postponed until January 21 because additional paginations of the docket needed to be concluded and provided to the accused.

“The final indictment has already been provided to him. All pretrial matters have been done. The final indictment has added tax fraud charges that we have been saying were looming for a time which amount to about R28m of undisclosed tax amounts to the tax collector.”

Smith and Agrizzi have been charged with corruption.

The ID said the charges stem from Bosasa through Agrizzi allegedly offering Smith gratifications in the form of security upgrades to his Gauteng home and Smith’s acceptance of cash transferred into his personal bank account via the bank account of his company, Euro Blitz.

Seboka said Smith’s additional charges are fraud, money laundering and tax fraud.

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