NPA targeted over 'non-existent' Gupta case

Lawyers for the Gupta's family network are adamant the case they were arrested for in Dubai is non-existent. ‘This matter should not be in this court ... because they (the NPA) haven't worked out their case,’ Advocate Mike Hellens SC, who represents Atul and Rajesh Gupta, their associates and companies, told the Free State High Court (Bloemfontein). A report on the News24 site notes that Helens claimed that the NPA intends ‘to add Atul Gupta to this trial one day, on a case that they don't understand’. According to Hellens, the Gupta accused had sought ‘further particulars’ from the state about the case against them on 24 May, just days before Atul and Rajesh Gupta were arrested by Dubai police on 2 June. Hellens said the answer to the request for further particulars was provided on 20 June. He confirmed the Guptas regarded this response as inadequate and would seek ‘further and better particulars’ from the state. If the state's response to this request was inadequate, the Gupta accused would bring an application to compel it to answer their request.

Explaining the accused could seek the quashing of the charges against them ‘if the state fails to answer, or again answers inadequately’, Acting Judge President Martha Mbhele interjected, saying she understood the procedure. Hellens responded: ‘I don't think my learned friend does,’ in apparent reference to Advocate Naseer Cassim SC, who is acting for the NPA in the Nulane case. Cassim was clearly unhappy about this statement, which he said was ‘really unfair’. The News24 report notes that he accused Hellens of ‘playing to the public gallery’ and then trying to ‘put the blame on me’.

Hellens, on behalf of Ronica Ragavan and the Gupta-linked company Islandsite Investment 180, told the court they are likely to apply for a discontinuation of prosecution as the state is failing to provide meaningful further particulars. Cassim conceded that there has been little progress in the case. Netwerk24 reports that the extradition proceedings against the Gupta brothers in Dubai is also causing a delay. A lawyer familiar with the proceedings, who was not named, said the first hurdle is that the crimes the Guptas are charged with occurred more than a decade ago. In the UAE, these crimes prescribe after 10 years, the lawyer said. Judge Martha Mbhele postponed the matter to 8 September for further pre-trial proceedings.

In his latest Q&A feature in the Sunday Times, Chris Barron asked former state prosecutor and DA justice spokesperson Glynnis Breytenbach whether she is confident the NPA will stop the Guptas’ high-class team of SA lawyers getting them out on bail. ‘It doesn’t depend on the high-class team, it depends on the facts, and the facts are quite simple. They’ve committed money-laundering offences not only in SA but in Germany, the UK and the US. (Those countries would) all have an interest in having a look at them at some point. They’ve got every incentive to run and hide and that would be a huge issue in any bail application.’ Questioned on how much pressure the UAE will be under to ensure they don’t escape, Breytenbach said it doesn’t want to be a financial pariah state and ‘it could lead to greylisting and that is something everybody wants to avoid’. Regarding the challenges facing the NPA which has experts who have been dealing with extradition cases for years, she said this case ‘has got to be packaged for the UAE in a fashion that streamlines with its domestic law’.