Fugitive caught after 16 years

Relatives had harboured the man

ACITY employee who evaded prison for 16 years is finally behind bars – after a bitter relative ratted on him to police.

Dharamraj Deoraj Singh, 42, is serving his nine-month sentence at Westville Prison for defeating the ends of justice after he was arrested by Umhlali police at his Red Hill home last week.

Singh had been employed as an assistant accountant at Durban Solid Waste.

eThekwini Municipality spokesman, Thabo Mofokeng, said city employees were obliged to disclose if they had a criminal record on their application form.

He said it would be investigated if Singh made his conviction known when he applied for the job with the city.

KwaZulu-Natal police spokesman, Colonel Jay Naicker, said a committal warrant had been issued by the Verulam Magistrate’s Court and Singh was arrested on May 29.

“He paid a fine of R3 000 for theft and is serving a ninemonth prison sentence for perjury.”

Naicker said it was alleged that Singh had been harboured by family members for 16 years and was only exposed to authorities by a relative when they had a row.

Whether Singh would face an additional charge of evading arrest, Naicker said they were waiting for further directives from court.

When contacted for comment last week, Singh said he was aware he was a fugitive. He set up several face-to-face meetings with the Daily News but never pitched.

Eventually, he promised to send his side of the story in writing to the Daily News, but failed to do so.

Singh’s arrest came less than a month after the disgruntled relative, who wished to remain anonymous, sent a letter to national detective head Lieutenant-General Vineshkumar Moonoo.

According to correspondence sent to Moonoo’s office, Singh appeared on theft and defeating the ends of justice charges, on January 5, 1996, in the Stanger Magistrate’s Court.

He was found guilty of stealing R30 517.82 from the Shakaskraal Post Office in September 1995 and for making a false statement at the Umhlali police station. He told police he was held up by an unknown armed man in oThongathi and taken to the post office where the man removed the money.

At the time Singh was employed at the post office.

In October 1996, he was sentenced to a fine of R3 000, or nine months imprisonment on the theft charge. An additional 18 months imprisonment was conditionally suspended for five years.

For defeating the ends of justice, he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment.

On October 14 that year, Singh lodged an appeal against his sentence and the following day he was granted R3 000 bail.

Notice

However, in February 1998, he sent a notice of withdrawal of his appeal to the clerk of the Stanger court and the registrar of the Pietermaritzburg High Court. The appeal was subsequently withdrawn and the Stanger Magistrate’s Court was informed on March 2, 1998.

But, due to an administrative bungle and/or miscommunication between the court, police and the Department of Correctional Services, Singh was never arrested.

Since then, the courts, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) and police had been alerted to Singh being a fugitive.

The Ipid launched a probe and found that the investigating officer had not been in- formed that Singh had not served his term of imprisonment. The Ipid recommended that the investigating officer ensure that Singh hand himself over to serve his prison sentence – failing which, a warrant of arrest should be effected.

The spokeswoman for the National Prosecuting Authority, Natasha Ramkisson, said their relevant prosecutors had investigated the matter and spoken to Umhlali police.

“They indicated that once a sentence has been passed, the police files the docket,” she said. “If an appeal has been dismissed or withdrawn, the registrar of the High Court will send out a committal warrant to the prison authorities and it is the prison authorities who will have to locate and commit the accused into custody, if he does not hand himself over.”

Ramkisson said if the prison authorities had a problem in locating the sentenced person they would open up a docket in terms of some contravention of the Prisons Act.

“Police indicated they checked the SAPS systems and there was no record of Singh being circulated on the SAPS wanted list,” she said.

Attempts yesterday to contact Nokuthula Zikhali, of the Department of Correctional Services, were unsuccessful. TEACHING was disrupted at a Durban primary school yesterday when parents barricaded the entrances as they protested against the use of makeshift mobile classrooms.

Parents at Quarry Heights Primary School, near Newlands, said they were promised by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education that construction of a proper school building would start in February.

The 638 pupils at the fouryear-old school are taught in mobile classrooms and forced to use pit toilets.

There are 10 mobile classrooms, for Grade R to Grade 7, a Wendy house used as a principal’s office, a standpipe used by the pupils and 19 teachers, as well as two dilapidated containers – one for a security guard paid for by the school and the other used as a kitchen.

The school also has a tent which is sometimes used as a classroom.

Police were at the school yesterday to monitor the tense situation.

“Parents are tired of empty promises. We want a real school now, not these mobile classrooms,” said the school’s governing body chairman, Bonginkosi Ndlela. Some classes had up to 90 pupils with only one teacher.

“There are building plans, but we see nothing happening.”

Parents barricaded the road leading to the school with rocks, bricks and stones.

Umlazi education district director Bheki Ntuli was at the school yesterday and tried to calm parents. He assured them that construction would take place – but could not say when.

The department had hired a contractor to build the school, Ntuli said. “Sometimes service delivery is not as fast as we expect it to be (but) it is going to happen,” he said.

A school official said classes resumed after parents were addressed by Ntuli.