‘Double agents are crossing double agents,’ court is told at bail application

Dodgy dealings, double agents double-crossing double agents, impostors and abuse of the justice system have all featured in the ongoing bail hearing for businessman Hoosein Mohamed, who has been in custody for almost three weeks. 

Former Arthur Kaplan director Mohamed was taken into custody on June 1, after a heated encounter with Laila Motala, lead liquidator handling the well-known jewellery chain’s insolvency.  

During the heated encounter between the two, Mohamed claims he was manhandled by Motala’s private security, had fallen to the floor and dropped his gun when he was then cuffed and taken into custody. Motala claims Mohamed violently grabbed her by her jacket, threw her against a glass wall and pointed his firearm in her face while threatening to kill her. 

“We have ended up here in this marathon bail application because of controversial characters and abuse of the system. The applicant is accused of a schedule one offence and was entitled to be released on police bail on the first. Now we are on June 18 and he is still in custody. It is in the interests of justice that he be released,” Mohamed’s legal representative Laurance Hodes SC told the court at his fourth appearance since his arrest. 

Mohamed’s bail is being opposed by Motala, who believes her life will be in danger if he is released. In affidavits before court she has relayed how, after he was arrested, she successfully approached the Johannesburg high court for search and seizure warrants relating to the looting of high-value stock from Arthur Kaplan stores across the country amounting to about R45m. 

Motala named Mohamed, his colleague Althea Gruwer, his personal assistant Ammaarah Ismail and others linked to them as suspects. She was granted the right to search their properties and seize any suspected stolen items. However, the searches proved fruitless and millions in jewellery and designer watches remain missing. 

During one of the previous bail hearings the court was told by investigating officer detective sergeant Aubrey Tshisane that he would not be opposing bail as Mohamed had handed in all his nine legal firearms, was not a flight risk and had no previous convictions or outstanding cases against him. 

However, lawyer Ian Small-Smith acting on behalf of Motala on a watching brief, took the stand as a state witness and told the court that Mohamed had been charged with assaulting AK holding company Luxe Holdings executive Thulani Ngubane during a board meeting in December. The case was later withdrawn in March, but was to be reinvestigated and reopened. 

This is a case of double agents working against double agents. I look forward to the trial.

—  Hoosein Mohamed’s legal representative Laurance Hodes SC

This prompted Hodes to hand in an affidavit signed by Ngubane in December in which he stated his intention to withdraw the assault charges, claiming this is what led to the case being thrown out of court. To clear up any confusion, magistrate Liezel Davis postponed the matter again to Monday, asking that Ngubane present himself to court for questioning by her. 

Ngubane, who won a court order barring the media from photographing or recording him on the stand, told Davis he had known Mohamed for over 20 years, that they had socialised in the past but that there had been an altercation between them in December during which Ngubane was hit on the head, sustained a bleeding wound for which he had to seek medical attention, and his clothes had been covered in blood. 

However, though he had laid a charge of assault, he had decided to withdraw the case in the interests of the business and a smooth working relationship with Mohamed. 

Ngubane then testified that earlier this month he had received a call from an investigating officer who asked questions about the assault case. The person, whose name he could not recall, phoned him several times wanting more details and asked for photographs that were taken of Ngubane in his injured and bloody state. 

“What he was asking about, it touched me, and I was telling him the truth about everything. But I did not know who he was, I don’t know him from a bar of soap,” Ngubane responded when asked who he was speaking to and what the reasons for the call were. 

Ngubane continued to say he was confused when the caller told him his utterances on the phone would be put into writing and would form an affidavit with the photographs added as annexures. Ngubane said he had told the detective at the time that it was not his intention to reopen or pursue charges against Mohamed, and he wanted to distance himself from accusations that the affidavit would be used to deny Mohamed bail. 

The defence, in cross-examining Ngubane, revealed that the detective identified on the affidavit was a woman who had worked as a Sandton detective, but had died a few years ago. Efforts by a defence attorney to trace the calls made to Ngubane, revealed that they had come from former police general Mulangi Mphego, who has a checkered past, including links to corruption charges against former president Jacob Zuma and allegations of interfering with witnesses in the late former police commissioner Jackie Selebi’s corruption case. 

“This is a case of double agents working against double agents. I look forward to the trial,” Hodes said, as he informed Ngubane that he had been misled into believing he was speaking to a Sandton detective but was actually dealing “with the former head of crime intelligence”. 

Ngubane said he did not know Mphego — “even if he can come here right now, I won’t know him” — and confirmed to the court that he was not interested in pursuing assault charges against Mohamed. 

Prosecutor Yusuf Baba announced to the court that there was a third affidavit by Ngubane — signed on June 15 — in which he denied the contents of the second affidavit. Handing the affidavit in as exhibit 1, Baba asked Ngubane to explain the different versions. 

“I have no comment,” Ngubane said. 

Hodes objected to the separate jewellery heist case being linked to Mohamed’s bail hearing, as it had been opened after the assault charge.

When asked by the prosecutor if he could hand in another supplementary affidavit from Motala, and by Hodes if he could hand in a string of WhatsApp messages, Davis said she would be grateful for as much supplementary information as possible so the court could make an informed decision. 

“There are too many muddied waters here for me to make a quick decision,” she said, in postponing the matter to Thursday for her decision, ordering that Mohamed continue to be held at the Sandton police cells.  

Davis said the bail judgment would be made regarding the assault charge only, as though a theft docket had been opened, Mohamed had not been formally charged with anything in relation to that case.