Durban - Six years after being convicted of the murder of his wife, Howick businessman Sunesh Manilall must hand himself over to the authorities within 48 hours of being served with a notice of surrender.
This comes after a reserved judgment handed down in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday in which Manilall's appeal against his conviction was dismissed by Judge Piet Bezuidenhout.
Manilall was out on bail of R40 000 pending his appeal against his conviction and sentence for the murder of his first wife, Monika Manilall.
Manilall was convicted, with the woman he later married, Mumtaz Osman, and another man, Victor Mbatha, of orchestrating Monika's murder, in February 2006.
Monika was shot dead in her Howick home by four men found to have been hired to carry out the murder for a fee of R10 000.
The trial judge, the late KZN judge president Herbert Msimang, ruled that Manilall and his lover, Osman, assisted by Mbatha, had hired men to murder Monika because she had threatened to divorce her husband after finding out about his affair.
Manilall, Osman and Mbatha were sentenced to life imprisonment. Manilall subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against his conviction, which was granted.
In June 2011, he was released on R40 000 bail pending his appeal to a full bench.
Manilall and Osman (who is serving her life sentence at Westville Prison) have since divorced and Manilall has again remarried.
In his judgment, Bezuidenhout rejected Manilall's claims that Osman arranged the murder without his knowledge.
"She had never been to Manilall's home and did not even know the address. She was also satisfied with the state of affairs and to continue with her relationship with Manilall. I cannot find a factual basis for the submission that she planned the murder without his knowledge," the judge said.
It was also submitted that Osman was a jealous lover. There was, however, no such evidence.
"In actual fact, the evidence indicates the opposite," said the judge.
The trial court heard evidence that Mbatha and Osman, together with Sithembiso Ngwenya, Siyabonga Mdlalose and Phumlani Madlala, went to Manilall's home on the day in question. Mbatha and Osman dropped them off. They were aware the domestic worker was not working that day, that the back door was open and that they had to watch out for a panic button in the house.
"This information must have been obtained from someone.
"The only inference to be drawn is that Manilall supplied this information," the judge said, adding that only Manilall could have been aware the domestic worker would not be at work on June 3, 2006.
Bezuidenhout found that the judgment of the trial court was detailed and well-reasoned.
"I can find no misdirection by the learned judge Msimang in his reasoning nor in his factual findings. The probabilities were considered and properly assessed and the credibility of witnesses considered. The probabilities also favoured the version of the State," said the judge.
He added that Manilall's version was "inherently improbable and correctly rejected by the trial court".
"His evidence that he never spoke to Osman about the fact that his wife wanted a divorce as she had found out about the affair, nor that they ever spoke about his wife is improbable.
"Manilall's evidence that he did not suspect Osman can safely be rejected, he even married her after she was arrested for the murder of his wife. It is indicative that he was well aware of what was happening and was part of the scheme," said Bezuidenhout.
The judge found that in the light of all the evidence, it has been established that Manilall was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Daily News