Durban - Woes continue to mount for Sateesh Isseri, the Durban businessman accused of murdering his lover who disappeared eight years ago.
The South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg ruled he illegally transferred more than R13 million from the account of the SA National Tuberculosis Association (Santa) – where he once worked.
Isseri was ordered to pay the association the R13m he took from its account and pay its legal costs, Santa’s lawyer, David Feldman said.
“It is close to R20 million that he needs to pay,” he said.
This was after Judge Lindiwe Nkosi-Thomas last week upheld an earlier ruling – which Isseri had appealed – that ordered him to pay back Santa’s money.
The matter began in 2011 soon after Santa – an NGO established in 1947 to combat and treat TB – entered into a management agreement with Isseri.
According to Santa, Isseri approached the organisation with the aim of helping it.
Three months after employing him, Santa discovered that Isseri was trying to “hijack” the organisation and had begun transferring all of the organisation’s property and movable assets into his name.
Santa obtained a high court interdict in 2012 to prevent Isseri from passing himself off as the association’s representative.
In December of that year the sheriff of the court evicted Isseri from the association’s head office in Bedfordview, east of Johannesburg.
According to Santa, much of the property and assets were put into Isseri’s Primed sub-acute hospital group which he owns with his wife, Elizabeth Chetty.
The court order included Chetty.
The couple own the Primed sub-acute hospital group which has clinics in Newlands West and Sarnia in Durban. A third clinic is in East London.
According to the Primed website, the clinics offer a diversity of sub-acute rehabilitative and therapeutic services at a level of care between acute care and traditional home nursing.
Feldman said that if Isseri did not pay back the money they would move to attach his property.
“We are going to do it as soon as we can,” he said.
The court order came in the same week Isseri was granted R50 000 bail in the Durban Magistrate’s Court in the murder of Faeika Esop Ali.
He came to court on a stretcher with his lawyer saying he was “seriously ill”, had recently had a stroke and needed a hernia operation.
He was a patient at eThekwini Hospital.
Esop Ali, who would have been 49 this year, was last seen on February 9, 2007.
According to an indictment by the National Prosecuting Authority, the relationship between Esop Ali and Isseri soured to the extent “that the deceased made it known to the accused that she no longer wished to continue in a relationship with him”.
It is alleged that Isseri “decided to rid himself of the deceased”, and on the evening of February 9, went to her residence and drove off with her.
“The deceased was never seen again alive and was killed by the accused in circumstances unknown to the State,” the indictment read.
Daily News
* Use IOL's Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.