Cape Town - Western Cape police commissioner Arno Lamoer and several of his top provincial police officials appeared in the Goodwood Magistrate’s court on Friday where they faced a total of 109 charges related to racketeering and money laundering.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s advocate Billy Downer led the State’s case against Lamoer, Mohamed Saleen Dawjee, Mohamed Zameer Dawjee, who is apparently not one of the accused but is representing his father's companies Towbars Cape and Towbars King, Darius van Der Ross and police couple Kolindren and Logambal Govender.
Downer told the court the offences involved a total amount of R1.4 million and if convicted the accused faced a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.
“These are very, very serious charges,” Downer said.
Downer said the alleged offences were schedule 5 offences due to a number of the corruption charges relating to amounts in excess of R10 000 as well as a charge dealing with a firearm. He said it was the State’s case that the accused acted with a common purpose as it related to the charges in question.
Downer told the court that the State and the various defence teams had agreed that the matter be postponed to June 12, to allow for it to be referred to the Western Cape High Court for pre-trial proceedings and for a high court trial date to be sought.
Magistrate Shaun Lea agreed to postpone the matter to June 12 and also granted the State’s request that all the accused, besides Zameer Dawjee who is out on a warning, be granted bail of R5 000.
ANA