(NEWZIMBABWE) Bredenkamp acquitted in $4.2m fraud trial
12/09/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
MILLIONAIRE businessman John Arnold Bredenkamp has been cleared over an alleged swindle involving US$4.2 million.
Justice Felistus Chatukuta on Thursday granted an application by Bredenkamp’s lawyers for discharge made at the close of the prosecution case on Tuesday.
During his two-day trial which opened on Monday, Bredenkamp had denied defrauding former Sahawi International director, Yaqub Ibrahim Mohammed, in a 2002 loan deal.
Justice Chatukuta said the evidence presented by prosecutors had “no relationship to the fraud charge”. The state had also failed to clearly distinguish the borrower and lender, she added.
Prosecutors had alleged that Bredenkamp misrepresented to Mohammed that he would pay back the money once he sold his mine, Kababankola Mining Company (KMC), in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The court heard that Bredenkamp sold his DRC mine in 2006, but would not repay the loan and became evasive prompting Mohammed to report the matter to the police.
The judge said prosecutors had failed to prove that Bredenkamp, who owned a substantial stake in KMC, had borrowed the money in a personal capacity.
The judge criticised prosecutors for succumbing to pressure by Mohammed to use the criminal court to recover his debt over what she said was a purely civil matter.
On a second charge of violating the exchange control regulations, Justice Chatukuta said the new constitution adopted earlier this year – taking note of dollarisation – had decriminalised the crime presented.
Labels: COURTS, FELISTUS CHATUKUTA, JOHN ARNOLD BREDENKAMP
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(NEWZIMBABWE) Fraud rap Bredenkamp seeks acquittal
11/09/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
MILLIONAIRE business tycoon John Arnold Bredenkamp, on trial over an alleged US$4.2 million swindle, asked a judge to acquit him as the prosecution rested at the High Court in Harare on Tuesday.
Bredenkamp’s lawyers argued that prosecutors criminalised what is a civil matter between him and Yakub Ibrahim Mahommed, the former director of Sahawi International.
Advocate Eric Matinenga, while applying for Bredenkamp’s acquittal, said the prosecution team of Editor Mavuto, Michael Reza and Innocent Chingarande had woefully failed to establish the connection between Bredenkamp and the commission of any crime.
On a second charge of breaching the exchange control regulations, Advocate Matinenga said “no evidence was led in court to prove the essential elements of the crime”.
“This matter is purely civil and that the prosecution was a typical case in which a complainant used the criminal courts to recover a debt,” the lawyer said as he asked Justice Felistus Chatukuta to acquit Bredenkamp without putting him to his defence.
Prosecutors say Bredenkamp borrowed the money from Mahommed in 2001 on the pretext that he was going to finance his mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but used the money for personal use and failed to pay it back.
Bredenkamp, the court heard, had pledged to repay the money upon selling his mining company in the DRC. But after disposing of the company, prosecutors said Bredenkamp neglected to pay back the debt.
Mahommed told the High Court on Monday that the money that Bredenkamp had borrowed for his DRC mine had been used to finance Zimbabwe army supplies through Raceview Enterprises (Raceview).
“I later realised that the company (Raceview) was set up for providing a feeding programme for the Ministry of Defence,” he said.
Asked by Advocate Matinenga, who appeared together with Innocent Chagonda and Deepak Mehta, on where the misrepresentation which would constitute fraud was emanating from, Mahommed said when the businessman borrowed the money, it was on the basis that he was to fund his mining operations in the DRC but he discovered that Bredenkamp used the money to fund the army.
“At that particular time, I considered the accused to be a man of integrity, honesty and a man of means and my friend,” Mahommed said.
He only decided to take legal action against Bredenkamp in 2008 after he realised the businessman was failing to pay back the money, he said in his testimony.
The civil court proceedings were abandoned after an out-of-court settlement was proposed.
But Bredenkamp had failed to follow the terms of their agreement, forcing Mahommed to institute criminal proceedings.
He said the Attorney General’s office declined to prosecute the matter in 2009, on the basis that the case was civil in nature and that it involved national interest.
Mahommed said despite numerous requests for his money, Bredenkamp continued making excuses. To date, he only paid back US$400,000 in 2001.
Mahommed said Bredenkamp accused him of telling various people in the community that he had lent him money.
“One particular person was Billy Rautenbach. It was at that time that he and Rautenbach had a bad relationship,” Mahommed said.
For long, considered one of Britain and Europe’s richest men, Bredenkamp made a payment attempt in 2006, the court heard. But Mahommed said his bank returned the money, after it emerged that the businessman was under fraud investigations in the United Kingdom.
Mahommed said he lent Bredenkamp the money from proceeds of his Sahawi International (Private) Limited cigarette trading business in South Africa.
Bredenkamp – famous for his helicopter shuttles in Harare – had promised to pay back the money after disposing off his Kababankola Mining Company in the DRC.
In his founding affidavit submitted at the start of the trial, Bredenkamp denied defrauding Mahommed, claiming he did not borrow the money in his personal capacity.
“This prosecution is malicious and a gross abuse of the court’s process,” Bredenkamp said.
Justice Chatukuta will deliver a ruling on the defence application for a discharge on Wednesday.
Labels: ERIC MATINENGA, JOHN ARNOLD BREDENKAMP
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Bredenkamp faces US$4m swindle charges
08/07/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
LOCAL tycoon John Bredenkamp has appeared in court facing fraud charges after allegedly failing to repay a US$4 million loan secured from a fellow businessman.
Bredenkamp, who is said to enjoy close ties with the Zanu PF hierarchy, appeared in court last Friday accused of swindling former Sahawi International director Yaqub Ibrahim Mohammed.
The Mazowe-based tycoon was not formally charged when he appeared before Harare magistrate Donald Ndirowei and was remanded out of custody to September 9 on US$2,000 bail.
He is also charged with borrowing foreign currency from an unauthorised dealer without the approval of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
Prosecutor,Tungamirai Chakurira, said some time in 2002, Bredenkamp secured a US$4,212,123 loan from Mohammed who raised the money through cigarette manufacturing firm, Sahawi International, which was based in South Africa.
Chakumira said Bredenkamp misrepresented to Mohammed that he would pay back the money once he sold his mine, Kababankola Mining Company, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Mohammed advanced him the cash at 6% interest per annum, capitalised monthly.
The court heard that Bredenkamp sold his DRC mine in 2006, but would not repay the loan and became evasive prompting Mohammed to report the matter to the police.
The prosecutor also said by borrowing the cash without securing authority from RBZ Bredenkamp – who resides at resides at Thetford Farm in Mazowe - contravened sections of the country’s exchange control regulations.
Labels: COURTS, JOHN ARNOLD BREDENKAMP
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(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE, THE INDEPENDENT UK) Bredenkamp sues UK government over sanctions
21/06/2013 00:00:00
by The Independent (UK)
THE UK government has found itself at the centre of an extraordinary legal battle with a Zimbabwean tycoon who claims the Foreign Office unlawfully caused his assets to be frozen
based on “unsubstantiated” comments made to an ambassador.
John Bredenkamp, a controversial businessman accused of breaking sanctions in Rhodesia in the 1970s and supplying arms to both sides during the Iran-Iraq war, is suing the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, after he discovered
the British Government was behind a decision to blacklist him for supporting President Robert Mugabe.
He was removed from the EU sanctions list following a review of the measures in February 2012.
The 72-year-old tycoon claims the European Union measure in 2009 was “devastating for his personal and professional reputation” and was based on “exceptionally generalised” evidence.
In documents filed at the High Court, Bredenkamp’s lawyers said the Foreign Office’s evidence was “based on entirely unsubstantiated, undocumented and unparticularised comments made orally to the former ambassador of the United Kingdom to Zimbabwe, Dr Andrew Pocock”.
“Remarkably, and despite the entirely predictable and disastrous consequences which would flow from listing the claimant, it appears the ambassador failed to seek, let alone obtain, any detail at all as to the comments made to him, and that he did not even make contemporaneous records of those comments he particularly relied upon.”
Bredenkamp’s lawyers are challenging the lawfulness of the Government’s decision to freeze his assets and impose a travel ban to Europe between 2009 and 2012.
According to High Court documents, the Foreign Office privately informed the European Union that the businessman had “strong ties” to the Mugabe government and “provided, through his companies, financial and other support to the regime”.
His lawyers argue the UK government produced no evidence to substantiate the allegations and say Bredenkamp has always “vigorously rejected” claims that he supported Mugabe.
Timothy Otty QC told the court the tycoon had only met the Zanu PF leader once in 1982, was imprisoned on false charges and stripped of his citizenship in 2006.
At the High Court today, it emerged that Bredenkamp sought disclosure of nine emails from Foreign Office officials that outlined why ministers decided he should be blacklisted.
However, lawyers acting for the Government claimed they were too sensitive to release during the proceedings and tried to withhold them on “public-interest immunity” grounds as it could affect the UK’s “international relations” with other countries.
The Independent and Bredenkamp’s lawyers were then forced to leave the court while the Foreign Office and Justice Collins decided whether they could be released to the businessman’s legal team.
In the claim against Hague, Bredenkamp’s lawyers said: “The effect of [Bredenkamp’s] listing was, quite predictably devastating for his personal and professional reputation, for his business interests, and for the many hundreds of individuals dependent upon him, as well as for their families. It has also seriously impacted upon his physical health.
“He wishes to obtain a declaration as to the unlawfulness of the United Kingdom’s conduct at the outset, both by way of vindicatory relief, and in order to clear the path for a claim for damages in respect of the very substantial losses he has suffered. As a result of the sanctions he has faced he has gone from a position of very substantial wealth to one involving very substantial losses.”
Otty, a leading human rights barrister, told the court that the action by the UK Government means his client is unable to bank anywhere in the world “save for a single, personal account in Zimbabwe which is of very limited use because of exchange controls”.
Bredenkamp, who made his money in tobacco farming, was named in a 2002 UN report as a key arms trader who made millions of dollars from exploiting natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
A representative of Bredenkamp’s who attended court but refused to give his name told The Independent that “everything that has ever been written about him is fictitious and based on no evidence”.
He added: “If you Google Bredenkamp he is supposed to have stolen nuclear bombs. It is ridiculous.”
Labels: JOHN ARNOLD BREDENKAMP, SANCTIONS, ZDERA
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