The controversial businessman Zunaid Moti.
- The Randburg Magistrate Court has suspended an arrest warrant issued against former Moti Group legal assistant Clinton van Niekerk.
- Van Niekerk was arrested in Durban on Wednesday while en route to New Zealand.
- He is accused of stealing confidential information from the Moti Group between September and November of last year.
The former legal adviser to controversial businessman Zunaid Moti has been released after the Randburg Magistrate’s Court suspended an arrest warrant against him.
Clinton van Niekerk was arrested for “theft of confidential information” in Durban on Wednesday, according to his lawyer, Stephen May.
He was en route to New Zealand at the time of his arrest, apparently out of fear for his life.
According to the statement of charges, it is alleged that he stole confidential information from the Moti Group, amounting to 4,013 files, between September and November 2022.
Moti owns the Sandton-based Moti Group, which includes mining, property development, security, logistics and aviation among its business interests.
Van Niekerk was transferred from Durban to Johannesburg, despite his legal team successfully approaching the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban to stop the transfer.
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The High Court issued an order on Thursday, ordering the Minister for Safety and Security and the Verulam and Sandton SAPS station commanders not to remove Van Niekerk from the jurisdiction of the Verulam Magistrate Court or from the jurisdiction of KwaZulu-Natal. , pending further redress sought in the matter before him.
The court also ordered Van Niekerk to be detained at the Verulam police station, pending his application to quash the Gauteng warrant.
The court ordered that the minister and station commanders be informed of the order by telephone and that arrangements be made for the order to be sent to them electronically.
During proceedings at Randburg Magistrate Court on Friday, May argued that police violated a court order by taking her client to Gauteng after his arrest in Durban and that they were in contempt of court.
May argued that her client was a whistleblower and never intended to evade arrest.
But the state argued that van Niekerk was a flight risk and that he intended to leave the country at the time of his arrest.
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The prosecutor told the court that his wife was already in New Zealand.
The matter was removed from the scroll.
Upon her client’s release, May said:
The order entered by His Honor Judge Shapiro provides for further litigation in the Durban High Court in connection with the order issued in Randburg and executed in Durban, as to whether it will be set aside. However, my client has now been ordered released here.
Asked what would happen from here, May explained that the National Public Ministry could summon her client, or request a new order to register the matter again.
As it stood, there was no case pending against Van Niekerk and therefore he was not warned to appear in court or released on bail.
