AUSTRALIAN Shumsheer Singh Ghumman made a last-minute bid yesterday to have his trial for arson and fraud re-opened in the Cape Town Regional Court.

Magistrate Herman Pieters had been scheduled to deliver judgment in the case yesterday. Instead, a notification was delivered to him in his chambers that the defence team would launch an application to re-open its case.

Ghumman has pleaded guilty to a charge of arson, but not guilty to charges of fraud, incitement to commit murder, attempted murder and malicious damage to property.

The charges followed his allegedly throwing petrol bombs at the Clifton, home of Philip Rhind, with whose daughter Hannah, Ghumman had a friendship in the United Kingdom. Ghumman admitted petrol-bombing the Rhind home, out of anger over the father's interference with his relationship.