SA SIBLINGS LINKED TO OMAN MURDER
Authorities ask brother to hand himself over in exchange for sister
THE mystery of the incarceration of a South African woman in Oman has deepened after it emerged that she and her brother are allegedly linked to a murder that took place in that country.
It is also alleged that she is being held for assisting her brother escape the alleged murder rap in the Middle Eastern country.
Now Omani authorities are said to have asked for the woman’s brother to hand himself over in exchange for her freedom.
Chloe Collins, from Kraaifontein, arrived in Oman in April to work as a hotel waitress. However, less than three weeks after arriving she was detained by the authorities in the country.
The Collins family believed their daughter was wrongfully detained and said the details of the case against her were unclear to them.
The family’s lawyer, Simone Carolissen, told The Star they did not know what Collins was charged with, or whether she had appeared in court.
“Everything has been hanging in the air, but what we do know is that she’s in custody. She went to work over there, and was sent through an agency,” she said.
Carolissen added that the family heard that Collins was arrested in connection with a crime her brother committed. However nothing was confirmed.
“There’s a story that’s been making the rounds in respect that her brother’s been linked to a crime that occurred in Oman,” said the lawyer.
A source close to the case said that Collins was allegedly detained because her brother was a suspect in the murder of an Omani citizen and Collins allegedly assisted him to flee the country.
“While the police were looking for him, the sister assisted the brother to get out of the country undetected. She got him a ticket and helped him to escape,” said the source.
The source added that the Collins family had not been forthcoming with information about the arrest because the facts did not favour their daughter.
Carolissen said they did not want to disclose Collins’s brother’s name for his safety. However, she confirmed that he was also in Oman earlier in the year but returned to South Africa. The brother is in a mental institution being treated for schizophrenia, diagnosed on his return to the country.
The spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco), Clayson Monyela, said the Oman government informed the South African Embassy in Muscat of Collins’s detention.
“Ms Collins has requested in writing that Dirco not share any information regarding her detention with the media, and Dirco is therefore not in a position to divulge the reason for her detention,” said Monyela.
He added that it was international practice that governments did not intervene in the legal aspects of a case when their citizens were arrested and detained overseas.
“As is practice, the South African government is not in a position to ask for charges against a South African citizen to be dropped, or for a citizen to be released from detention,” he said.
Carolissen said Collins was doing fine, according to a missionary who visits her regularly in jail.
The lawyer said the Collins family was faced with the challenge of finding legal representation for their daughter in that country because its legal fees were expensive.
Locked Up in a Foreign Country, an organisation that helps South Africans in foreign jails, said Dirco had announced that there were about 800 South Africans detained in foreign countries, but the director, Patricia Gerber, was not sure how correct these figures were.