Lawyer slams police for abandoning graft probe

A PIETERMARITZBURG lawyer has lashed out at the Serious Commercial Crime Unit for abandoning a fraud and corruption case without informing his elderly client who had opened charges against men who illegally made small fortunes by selling plots on his farm.

Jagath Singh had for years been battling to recover his Leliesfontein Farm in Thornville outside Pietermaritzburg, which was subdivided and sold to “wealthy” people who have since built about 70 expensive homes.

Singh and lawyer Udash Vather believed that the occupants paid between R40000 to R50000 per site, but Singh did not get a cent of this.

In 2017 the Pietermaritzburg High Court granted Singh an order to evict the homeowners from the farm and demolish the houses, some of them double-storey units.

Upon learning in 2018 that the illegal occupants had bought the sites without his knowledge, Singh opened a case against a group of men who sold it.

However, when Sunday Tribune inquired about the progress of the investigation, provincial spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) Captain Simphiwe Mhlongo confirmed the case and said it was allocated to the Pietermaritzburg Serious Commercial Crime Unit, which did not proceed with the investigation.

“It was established that the matter was a civil matter which was already in progress in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. As a result, the docket was closed,” said Mhlongo.

Vather said it was unethical for police to abandon the criminal investigation against people alleged to have illegally sold the land based on a civil case launched to evict the occupants, as these were separate matters.

“The case was registered, and the police pushed this matter as a civil matter while this was not a civil matter.

“If somebody sold somebody’s property illegally, that cannot be a civil matter, it has to be a criminal matter and the police should have done more,” said Vather.

“In many of these cases police don’t follow up on investigations,” he said.

Singh believed that men who sold his land illegally were among those who approached him in 2013 or 2014 and introduced themselves as being involved in estate development and looking to buy the farm. However, Singh declined to deal with them.

The illegal occupants and Singh, independent of each other, provided the Sunday Tribune with the names of people who sold the land, but those people could not be located.

Vather said he was going ahead with executing the court order to evict and demolish the houses unless occupants each paid R150000 per site.

When the farm was invaded, Singh was in the process of developing it, Vather said.