ANC's Vincent Smith expected in court on corruption charge but 'recovering' Angelo Agrizzi won't be there

The corruption case against former Bosasa chief operations officer Angelo Agrizzi is back in court on Tuesday morning, but he won't be there as he is still recovering from illness.

The corruption and fraud case against Agrizzi and co-accused, former ANC parliamentarian Vincent Smith, will be back in the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court on Tuesday.

However, Agrizzi's attorney, Daniel Witz, said the Bosasa whistle-blower was still under strict rest and recovery restrictions from his medical team, and was on oxygen.

In October last year Smith was released on R30,000 bail, while Agrizzi was initially denied bail by the same court and was admitted in hospital a day after the bail was denied.

Agrizzi was granted bail by the high court in Johannesburg on October 30 on stringent conditions. They include that Agrizzi would forfeit his Italian villa purchased for about €880,000 should he abscond.

Other conditions attached to his bail are that he should not leave Gauteng, must report to a local police station every Friday, and undertake not to have any contact with witnesses in his corruption case.

Agrizzi was too ill to attend trial in Pretoria in November last year, where he faces charges related to the Bosasa R1.8bn fraud and corruption case. He could also not make it on the next court date of February 18 as he was still ill. That matter was postponed to June 24.

Smith faces corruption charges in his personal capacity as well as in his capacity as sole director and shareholder of Euroblitz (Pty) Ltd.

The two accused have been charged with contravening section 7 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

Smith was also charged with fraud. The charge emanates from his failure to disclose to the registrar of parliamentary members’ interests the gratifications that he received from Bosasa.

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