Majali fraud case slowly falling apart

THE State's fraud case involving the late controversial businessman Sandile Majali seems to be teetering on the brink of collapse.

Firstly, Majali was found dead in December and had the case against him withdrawn.

Now one of his co-accused, Haralambos Sferopoulos, has been committed permanently to a mental hospital while another, Elvis Bongani Ndala, has filed papers with the Johannesburg high court to save himself from being sent for mental observation.

Already, one of the men, Stephen Khoza, is serving a 30-day observation period at Sterkfontein mental institution after being sent there in December.

This leaves only one sane person, Linda Dlamini.

But the case against her might not stand because the charge sheet shows that her participation was minimal.

Majali and his alleged co-conspirators were charged with fraud for removing Kalahari Resources chairperson Daphne Mashile-Nkosi and her brother Brian Amos Mashile as directors of the company from the Cipro data base.

Sferopoulos is the Cipro agent who apparently removed Mashile-Nkosi and her brother's names from the database - replacing them with himself, Majali, Khoza, Dlamini, Roberto Rizzo and Nothando Nkosi.

The case seems to be reaching a dead end with all but one of the accused unable to stand trial.

Yesterday the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court declared Sferopoulos mentally unfit to stand trial.

A mental assessment report read out in court by prosecutor Shaun Abrahams indicated that Sferopoulos suffered from schizophrenia and a bi-polar disorder at the time of altering Kalahari Resources' details on August 27 2010, and could not have been aware of the consequences of his actions.

In another turn of events yesterday, magistrate Ashika Ramlaal ordered Ndala to obey an order that he should also go for mental observation.