Cape Town - Johannesburg property mogul Jason Rohde – who is accused of his wife’s murder – paid his R100 000 bail in cold, hard cash within 20 minutes of the order being granted in the Stellenbosch Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
The amount was paid 10 minutes before 3pm and officials immediately rushed off to bank the staggering sum, while police arranged for Rohde to be released.
The bail receipt recorded that Rohde’s attorney and spokesman Tony Mostert handed over the amount to cashiers at the court. An additional R1 million surety must be put up in two weeks.
Rohde was arrested last week at his house in Bryanston, Sandton, in connection with the murder of his wife Susan while the couple were away on a Sotheby’s Realty function at Spier Wine Estate last month. Her body was found in a bathroom. She had accompanied Jason to a company function and they stayed over at the estate.
He had allegedly raised the alarm when he could not open their bathroom door. He faces a single murder charge.
The now-suspended national chief executive of Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty has denied involvement in her death.
He claims she committed suicide and has armed himself with the opinion of an independent pathologist, who has found that his wife’s death was consistent with suicide.
Meanwhile, the State has gathered evidence which allegedly shows that injuries were inflicted to Susan Rohde’s neck after she had been smothered and strangled.
Investigators are also waiting for the results of a blood-spatter investigation, DNA tests and analysis of the couple’s cellphones.
Police are also in possession of the Rohde family laptop.
Rohde made his first court appearance on Thursday, when the State requested time to determine whether it would oppose his release on bail.
But although his lawyers fought passionately, magistrate Greg Jacobs granted the prosecution a small indulgence until Tuesday.
When the case returned to court, the magistrate was informed that the State did not oppose Rohde’s release.
After Rohde’s legal team indicated that he was worth R30m, bail was set at R100 000 and the accused was asked to put up an additional R1m surety in the form of a bank guarantee by September 14.
Rohde will not be under house arrest, but a probation officer will monitor him, and he has been confined to the Western Cape. He is expected to live with his brother-in-law near Melkbosstrand until his next court appearance on September 23.
On that date, the State will reveal its attitude towards him returning to his home in Bryanston.
In the interim, he has to report to Melkbosstrand police three times a week and he has been given strict instructions to refrain from communicating with State witnesses.
Outside the court, Mostert addressed the media, saying he wanted to make it clear that Rohde was detained without good reason for almost a week.
Mostert was referring to submissions made to the court last week that Rohde had been arrested without a warrant.
He said in a separate written statement that it was unnecessary for Rohde to have been put through the trauma of being driven to Cape Town when they had an arrangement with the police that he would hand himself over and make himself available wherever he was needed.
Mostert also said it was “regretful” that the State’s post-mortem report was leaked to the media when the defence did not have access to it.
If the veracity of the information had been established, the media would have found that he is a well-respected man and loving father, the statement said.
“Mr Rohde’s innocence and constitutional rights will be vigorously defended,” the statement said.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Western Cape spokesman Eric Ntabazalila explained that in terms of the law, the defence did not have a right to the information at this stage of the proceedings
He made it clear that the NPA did not leak the post-mortem report results to the media.