The controversial businessman Zunaid Moti.
- Zunaid Moti intends to take legal action after Clinton van Niekerk was released in a case related to information theft.
- Moti accuses Van Niekerk of stealing his family’s personal information and sharing it with a third party.
- He claims that his children’s birth certificates were stolen between September and November of last year.
Businessman Zunaid Moti threatened legal action after his former legal adviser, Clinton van Niekerk, was released.
Van Niekerk was arrested on a charge of “theft of confidential information” in Durban last Wednesday, before successfully challenging his arrest warrant in court.
Moti accused Van Niekerk of stealing personal information and documents from the Moti Group, including his children’s birth certificates.
Moti claimed that Van Niekerk shared this information with a third party and that it could jeopardize his security.
According to the charge sheet, Van Niekerk is alleged to have stolen confidential information from the Moti Group, including 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.
Moti said: “Clinton had no right to withhold, copy or share any Moti Group information or my personal documents, especially those of my children, when he knew and understood the dangers that my family and I are threatened with.”
Last Friday, Van Niekerk appeared before the Randburg Magistrate’s Court.
Police had arrested him in Durban on his way to New Zealand, apparently fearing for his life.
He was transferred from Durban to Johannesburg, despite an order from the KwaZulu-Natal High Court ordering the Verulam and Sandton SAPS Station Commanders not to remove him from the jurisdictions of the Verulam or KwaZulu-Natal Magistrate Court, pending further redress in the matter before him.
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His attorney, Stephen May, argued in court that his 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.
However, the matter was deleted from the scroll.
May previously told News24 that there was no pending case against Van Niekerk, although the NPA could subpoena her client or request a new order to re-register the matter.
Moti said: “The order to quash Van Niekerk’s arrest warrant was issued without application of the audi alteram partem rule, which is a right of all parties in court proceedings, which means ‘letting the other party as well’ be heard’.
“It is the principle that no person should be tried without a fair hearing in which each party has the opportunity to respond to the evidence against them.”
He said his lawyers would also look into May’s conduct and the circumstances in which the Randburg Magistrate Court dismissed the matter.
“Furthermore, we are filing a complaint with the Randburg Magistrate Court to investigate the events that occurred on January 27, 2023 and, in particular, the actions of a certain prosecutor and lawyer, Stephen May, regarding this matter,” it said. .
May declined to comment when contacted by News24.
