Postponement frustrates extortion racket accused

FREEDOM seemed tantalisingly close yesterday for the five men accused of running Cape Town’s biggest extortion racket – then it was snatched away.

The men’s lawyers hammered the state for the absence of the investigating officer from court for a second time.

Colonel Charl Kinnear was expected to be cross-examined by a crack bench of lawyers who are fighting to get Nafiz Modack‚ Colin Booysen‚ Ashley Fields‚ Jacques Cronje and Carl Lakay out on bail since their arrest more than a month ago.

State prosecutor Esna Erasmus told the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court that Kinnear experienced chest pains on his way to court yesterday and was taken to hospital to be examined.

Senior advocate Dirk Uys‚ representing Modack‚ demanded his client’s release.

“What we are dealing with is a man’s liberty‚ his ability to earn a living‚ his most fundamental of human rights‚” Uys said.

It appeared that when there was “difficulty in the state’s case someone falls ill”.

Ben Mathewson‚ representing Fields – the man who Kinnear claims arranged the fatal stabbing of a bouncer at Beerhouse in Long Street in 2015 and the murder of a manager at Hotel 303 in Sea Point – told the court Kinnear was using delaying tactics to keep the men behind bars.

Uys also said that there was a conspiracy to kill Modack in Tokai’s Pollsmoor Prison‚ where he is being held.

Modack’s advocate‚ Edwin Grobler‚ told the court on Tuesday that alleged Cape Town mobster Mark Lifman had put out a R20-million hit on Modack.

Kinnear testified that violence in Cape Town over the past two years‚ which has resulted in several murders, was the result of Modack’s grouping pushing out an established security racket run by Lifman‚ Jerome Booysen and Andre Naude.

It is understood the turf war has already claimed the lives of “steroid king” Brian Wainstein and Cape Town lawyer Noorudien Hassan‚ and led to three attempts on Jerome Booysen’s life last year.

Magistrate Joe Magele rubbished Uys’s allegation that Kinnear was orchestrating a postponement and referred to Kinnear’s statement in court that he had diabetes.

Magele allowed a postponement based on the claim of illness.

He said although the bail proceedings were urgent it could place great prejudice on the administration of justice and could bring the South African legal system into disrepute if he refused the state’s request for a postponement.

Erasmus told the court a Gauteng detective was on his way to Cape Town with a statement implicating Modack in extortion activities at The Grand in Rivonia‚ which markets itself as “Johannesburg’s premium strip club”.

The case continues tomorrow.