Kwanele Butana
A MEMBER of a Morrocan royal family took to the witness stand in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court yesterday in a bid to get her husband released on bail. He is accused of fraud.
Asmaah Ennamar El-Alaoui told the court during Sam Buthelezi’s bail hearing that she and their seven-month-old daughter are financially dependent on Buthelezi. El-Alaoui, 22, said she had been unemployed for two years until she was signed as a commercial model by a modelling agency on Sunday.
Buthelezi, 42, was arrested at the beginning of this month alongside Richard Kawie, 50, a former consultant for the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu) and the charges are related to their role in the financial affairs of the liquidated Canyon Springs Investments company.
Canyon Springs, owned by Economic Development Deputy Minister Enoch Gondongwana, his wife Thandiwe and Cape Town businessman Mohan Patel, was liquidated in October allegedly because it could not pay its debts.
Sactwu members’ provident funds transferred more than R400 million to the Trilinear Empowerment Trust, owned by Buthelezi, which later loaned R87m to Canyon Springs.
Witnesses who testified at a separate liquidation inquiry into Canyon Springs told the commission that Kawie was the “mastermind” behind the company’s financial affairs. The inquiry intends to find out what had led to the company’s collapse and what monies, if any, are recoverable.
The inquiry’s hearings resume on January 24 with Kawie on the witness stand, while the Western Cape High Court ordered Buthelezi two weeks ago to testify.
Yesterday, El-Alaoui told the court she married Buthelezi last year under South African and Islamic rights and that she had been living in South Africa for 12 years.
She said that she was not allowed to enter Morocco, where she claims to be royalty, as she had a fall-out with her father over “breaking the royal line” as she had married Buthelezi, a commoner.
State prosecutor Advocate Malini Govender of the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit put it to her that she only signed the lease agreement for renting a house in Sea Point so that Buthelezi could have a fixed address as she did not earn enough to pay the rent.
El-Alaoui paid R21 000 to the agent early this month and told the court that the money was rental for two months.
She did not agree with Govender’s view and said she was also involved in real estate and was trying to sell a friend’s house to earn commission.
In court papers, Buthelezi argued that he was his family’s breadwinner and that his four children were “solely dependent on me”.
He estimated his assets, mainly household goods, at R400 000.
Kawie told the court that he owned four properties in Cape Town and that he intended to sell one to settle his debts.
Kawie said he was financially responsible for his six children. He added that his continued imprisonment was jeopardising the resolution of a court judgment obtained by Standard Bank against him as a result of his defaulting on a housing bond repayment.
The former treason trialist said the mothers of his children would not be able to support the children on their own.
His lawyer, Bulelani Mbeleni, handed his identity document and two passports to the court.
The hearing resumes today.