Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) member Michael Amushelelo will have to change his travel plans for the coming weekend, after an attempt to have his bail conditions amended in a pending case on a multitude of fraud charges fell flat at the starting line in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
Amushelelo wanted the court to amend his bail conditions to enable him to travel to South Africa, where he planned to attend the launch of an election manifesto of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
The EFF, led by Julius Malema, is launching its election manifesto in Durban on Saturday.
Amushelelo and a co-accused in a pending criminal case in the High Court, Gregory Cloete, both appeared before deputy judge president Hosea Angula yesterday to apply for their bail conditions to be amended.
However, Angula told their lawyer, Lovisa Isak, that the initial court judgement in which they were granted bail, and the conditions attached to their bail, were not filed at the High Court.
As a result, there was no proper application before him, Angula said, before he ordered that the matter was struck off the court roll.
Amushelelo (32), Cloete (35) and four close corporations, a company and a trust controlled by Amushelelo are accused of having operated a Ponzi scheme, in which money was solicited from investors who were lured by promises of high returns on their investments, from September 2018 to October 2019.
The state is alleging that the money which investors entrusted to Amushelelo and Cloete, believing their funds were to be traded in foreign exchange markets, was not invested and that later investors’ money was used to pay back earlier ones’ funds.
According to the state, Amushelelo and Cloete had no independent income reflected in the bank accounts through which investors’ money was channelled.
The charges on which Amushelelo and Cloete are due to be prosecuted relate to payments totalling about N$14,7 million allegedly made to them by investors.
They are charged with 348 counts of fraud, alternatively theft by false pretences, and one count of money laundering.
Amushelelo and Cloete were arrested in October 2019.
They were granted bail in an amount of N$35 000 each four days after their arrest.
In terms of the bail conditions set by a Windhoek magistrate, they had to surrender their travel documents to a police officer, may not apply for new travel documents, may not leave the Windhoek district without the prior authorisation of the police officer investigating their case, and had to report to Windhoek Central Police station on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Amushelelo and Cloete announced near the end of March 2022 that they had joined the NEFF.
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