A WARRANT has been issued for the arrest of a top lawyer in Limpopo after his failure to appear in court on fraud charges.

Ralph Ndleve, a respected lawyer in the province, was to have appeared in the Waterval regional court yesterday on charges of fraud relating to a R90000 estate.

He had allegedly defrauded a family in Tiyani of more than R90000 in claims for the estate of the family's late father.

Ndleve had allegedly claimed the money in 2003 and failed to inform the family.

Seeing that the matter was being delayed, the family allegedly passed a motion of no confidence in Ndleve. They appointed another lawyer to execute the estate, only to find Ndleve had already claimed the money.

With the help of the new lawyer the family opened a fraud case against Ndleve last year. Since then Ndleve was summonsed to appear in court on a number of occasions but failed to do so.

A court official confirmed yesterday that a warrant had been issued against Ndleve. She said Ndleve had failed to give convincing reasons for his non-appearance.

"All I can say is that the court has finally taken a decision to issue an arrest warrant against Ndleve. Unless he comes up with reasons out of the ordinary he is facing arrest," said the official.

She, however, said the matter had been set aside for three days between October 26 and 28, pending Ndleve's representations to the director of public prosecutions.

A senior prosecutor at Waterval, Daniel Machaba, said yesterday the matter would be handled by Lavina van Zyl, a senior prosecutor from Polokwane, at the next appearance date.

He said they postponed the matter to the furthest date so that by the time it went to court again the DPP will have listened to thepresentations.

Ndleve became popular two years ago after he convinced the Polokwane magistrate's court that Munghana Lonene FM DJ Brian Rikhotso was not responsible for the killing of Pastor Musa Maluleke, who worked as a language practitioner at the provincial legislative chambers in Lebowakgomo.