Durban high court judge Rashid Vahed has found dentist Anwar Mohamed Jeewa guilty of culpable homicide, ruling he negligently caused the death of a Canadian father who died two days after checking into Jeewa's Westville-based, unregistered detox centre for controversial Ibogaine treatment.
Vahed also convicted Jeewa of five “statutory counts” in that he unlawfully manufactured, compounded, sold, dispensed and exported the schedule 6 substance and ran an unregistered treatment centre.
Sentencing is expected to take place on September 12 when state advocate Nadira Moosa is likely to ask he be jailed.
Evidence in the trial was Milos Martinovic was lured to Jeewa’s Minds Alive Rehabilitation Clinic in November 2017, believing Jeewa could cure him from his addiction to Xanax — a benzodiazepine which acts as a depressant on the central nervous system.
Martinovic had started using benzodiazepines after the diagnosis and subsequent death of his mother from cancer and was desperate for a cure for his addiction.
He believed Jeewa, who had a strong presence on social media as a “specialist” with extensive knowledge in ibogaine therapy and who had attended international conferences and spoken on the issue, was a medical doctor.
Two days later he was dead, essentially from a cardiac arrest.
Jeewa had pleaded not guilty to the charges, including one of murder.
Vahed, in his ruling on Thursday, found him not guilty of murder, saying Jeewa had no desire to cause Martinovic’s death and there was no evidence he had any intention, direct or indirect, to murder him.
There were no antidotes or drugs available for the nurse to administer and he did not have an intravenous line attached to him. Prof Mash was extremely critical of this.
— Judge Rashid Vahed
However, he said, the test for a conviction of culpable homicide was whether a “reasonable person” would have foreseen the possibility of Martinovic’s death and would have taken steps to guard against this.
In this matter, Vahed said a “reasonable person” was a medical practitioner with knowledge of Ibogaine therapy.
“I am compelled to conclude, from the expert opinions (in evidence before the trial) Jeewa was negligent and without any doubt, he is guilty of the crime of culpable homicide.”
He said the evidence showed Martinovic had been allowed to keep 16 boxes of Xanax he had brought with him, had been allowed to self-medicate, had been given Ibogaine without Jeewa first testing the residual levels of Xanax in his body, there had been no monitoring of his vital signs and there was no emergency procedure in place.
One witness during the trial, Dr Faizel Danker, came in for blistering criticism as “being one of the worst witnesses I have ever come across”, by Vahed.
Danker’s prescription pad was found at Minds Alive, with about 100 “blank” prescriptions pre-signed and stamped by him.
Vahed said this meant anyone could fill them in for any drug, rejecting Danker’s explanation that he had left the pad there as a convenience to himself and for his own use.
He said it was “hard to fathom” Jeewa’s explanation — the Canadian was intelligent and could be trusted — for not taking away the Xanax from Martinovic.
Experts on Ibogaine who testified, including US-based Prof Deborah Mash had said this was highly negligent, as was the failure to ascertain the concentration of benzodiazepines in Martinovic’s system before administering Ibogaine.
Vahed said Jeewa knew about the risks.
Just two months before Martinovic booked into the clinic, Jeewa had attended a conference in Vienna where he had cautioned delegates to “be very careful of benzos” and ensure pre-screening tests had to be done.
“If you test positive, you go home until you are clean,” he said.
With regards to the lack of constant monitoring of Martinovic’s vital signs, Jeewa had said in a statement to investigating officer Lt-Col Anton Booysen, all patients were attached to an ECG monitor because Ibogaine could cause cardiac arrest. However, this did not happen with Martinovic. Jeewa claimed the patient had insisted the cardiac leads be removed.
“This statement is astounding,” Vahed said. “Martinovic was already at that time in an altered state of mind because Ibogaine had been administered. He was clearly not in position to make an informed decision.’
He said the evidence showed there was no constant monitoring, there were no emergency measures in place and a “crash cart” was on another floor and not fetched when Martinovic went into cardiac arrest.
“There were no antidotes or drugs available for the nurse to administer and he did not have an intravenous line attached to him. Prof Mash was extremely critical of this.”
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