Shaun Roos.
Image: Kim Swartz
THE highly-anticipated bail judgment for Cape businessman Shaun Roos came to a halt after the court heard that the accused allegedly attempted to have a witness kidnapped.
Roos, 56, returned to the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday facing a Schedule 5 charge of corruption after he allegedly bribed City Manager Lungelo Mbandazayo with R4 million to reinstate tenders for his road surfacing company, Triple C and Maintenance.
The company had several tenders with the City; however, it was later found that alleged tender fraud was at play, which led to a joint investigation by the City’s Ethics and Forensics Department and SAPS.
Roos was arrested on March 3 during an undercover operation carried out at Watercress Mall in Somerset West, with Mbandazayo acting as an agent.
Wednesday’s court appearance was set down to hear arguments and judgment. But the State told the court that they had an affidavit from a witness claiming that Roos attempted to have them harmed.
The State said: “The affidavit was presented to the State on Wednesday morning, which was made by a witness, after which SAPS got the information directly from the witness that there were certain threats made on their life.
“It involves, once again, the interference with the witness and causing them harm. This affidavit has a direct impact on the question of bail, and we ask that we are given an opportunity to reopen our case to represent this evidence.”
The State said that the alleged threats were made on March 27 and April 7, and that they have recordings.
"It appears the accused has once again allegedly made contact with alleged prison gang members in order to follow and to kidnap the witness, which is said in the affidavit,” the State said.
Defence attorney, William Booth said the State was pulling a “12th hour stop” to his client’s bail application.
The court heard, however, that the magistrate needed all the information in the affidavit to make a proper decision on the accused’s bail outcome.
The case was postponed to April 21.
Cape Times