Court halts Shaun Roos' bail judgment over alleged witness kidnapping plot
Shaun Roos, 56, greeting his family members in the gallery at the Cape Town Magistrate's Court.
Image: Kim Swartz
The highly anticipated bail judgment for local businessman Shaun Roos was halted after the court heard the accused was allegedly working with suspects to have a witness kidnapped.
Roos, 56, returned to the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Wednesday, facing a Schedule 5 charge of corruption after he allegedly bribed City Manager Lungelo Mbandazayo with R4 million to reinstate tenders for his road surfacing company, Triple C and Maintenance.
The company had several tenders with the City; however, it was later found that alleged tender fraud was at play, which led to a joint investigation by the City’s Ethics and Forensics Department and SAPS.
The accused was arrested on March 3 during an undercover operation carried out at Watercress Mall in Somerset West, with Mbandazayo acting as an agent.
The court appearance was set down to hear arguments and judgment.
The State said they wanted to reopen their case to present an affidavit by a witness, saying Roos attempted to have them harmed.
The State said: “The affidavit was presented to the State on Wednesday morning, which was made by a witness, after which SAPS got the information directly from the witness that there were certain threats made on their life. It involves, once again, the interference with the witness and causing them harm. This affidavit has a direct impact on the question of bail, and we ask that we are given an opportunity to reopen our case to represent this evidence.”
The State said the alleged threats were made on March 7 and 27, and they have the recordings.
They added: “It appears the accused has once again allegedly made contact with alleged prison gang members in order to follow and to kidnap the witness, which is said in the affidavit.”
Defence attorney, William Booth said the State was pulling a “12th hour stop” to his client’s bail application.
The court heard, however, that the magistrate needed all the information in the affidavit to make a proper decision on the accused’s bail outcome.
The case was postponed to April 21.