The criminal trial of former PRASA Western Cape regional manager Mthuthuzeli Swartz and businessman Nadir Mohiudeen has been postponed because the state witness is ill.
Mohiudeen and Swartz, who is also a former Acting Group CEO of PRASA, are accused of fraudulently selling 42km of railway line in the Eastern Cape in 2012.
The trial of the two men in the Gqeberha commercial crimes court finally got underway in March this year, more than six years after their arrest in 2019, with Swartz and Mohiudeen pleading not guilty.
The case was beset with delays, partly by Mohiudeen changing lawyers. It was then held up by his February 2023 application for a high court review of magistrate Nolitha Bara’s dismissal of his request for further particulars of the charges against him. It took the high court in Gqeberha 18 months to have its first hearing on the review application. Mohiudeen’s application was finally dismissed in December last year, which allowed the criminal trial to proceed.
Adrian Samuels, general manager of Durban-based company Akisisa, was the first, and so far only, state witness on the stand in the commercial crimes court in March. Led by state prosecutor Gerrit van der Merwe, Samuels described how Swartz and Mohiudeen had misled him and his cousin Cedric Samuels into believing Mohiudeen’s company had a tender with Metrorail (PRASA’s commuter rail section) to dispose of 360,000 tonnes of used rail over a year. This led to Samuels and his cousin believing they had been given the rights to uplift a disused line between Elliot and Maclear in the Eastern Cape.
Samuels was due to return to the stand on Tuesday for cross-examination by Swartz’s and Mohiudeen’s lawyers, but his journey from Durban to Gqeberha was cancelled due to illness, GroundUp was told.
The case was due to continue until Thursday, but has been postponed to 30 July.
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