Johannesburg -
Soweto’s self-styled billionaire, Mandla Lamba, was back in court on Monday, exactly five months after his second attempt to be released on bail failed.
But the trial, which has been moving at a snail’s pace since South Africa’s “youngest” billionaire’s arrest in May last year, was postponed yet again.
Lamba’s attorney gave up on him at the Lenasia Magistrate’s Court on Monday, citing “contradictory instructions” as reasons for withdrawing from the case.
Sibusiso Gamede said Lamba gave him conflicting instructions each time they consulted.
The man who claimed to be the country’s youngest mining tycoon now has only two weeks to find another lawyer.
Lamba rose to notoriety after claiming to be the owner of gold, diamond and manganese mines in SA, Zambia and Congo-Brazzaville – making him Africa’s only mining tycoon aged under 30.
In newspaper articles for which he had posed for camera pictures that portrayed him as a focused businessman, Lamba also said he had a doctorate in business administration from Unisa and a PhD in business philosophy from the University of Liverpool.
He also claimed his path to riches had been carved by businessman Cyril Ramaphosa and his wife, Tshepo Motsepe. But the pair denied being his mentors.
Then taxi owners came forward, accusing him of swindling them of thousands of rand after he had promised to buy them new vehicles. More claims later, Lamba was arrested at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton in May last year and charged with 23 charges, including theft of R480 000.
He also faces culpable homicide charges relating to a 2007 car crash in Roodepoort in which Wayne Greeff and his son Brandon, 8, were killed.
In May this year, Lamba challenged unsuccessfully in the Johannesburg High Court the June 2011 decision by Orlando Magistrate’s Court presiding officer Anton le Roux to deny him bail.
But in the high court Judge Mathilda Masipa upheld Le Roux’s ruling, saying Lamba had failed to clarify the same issues that had led Le Roux to deny him bail, making it impossible for investigators to verify his residential address.
“It is clear that the accused doesn’t have a fixed address… The bail is refused,” said Judge Masipa at the time.
The Star