Long weekend in the cells for jewellery tycoon as his bail hearing stalls

The complicated and dramatic bail hearing for the businessman and former director of Arthur Kaplan Jewellers, Hoosein Mohamed, will continue on Monday.  

Mohamed was arrested on June 1 and has been charged with common assault and pointing a firearm after an alleged attack on Laila Motala, who has been handling the liquidation of the jewellery chain since receiving the appointment certificate in December. 

Motala began to suspect mismanagement and other wrongdoing a few weeks ago and appointed a forensic auditor to investigate. While that report is not complete, early indications made known to her were that much of the high-value stock at the Arthur Kaplan shops had gone missing and the regular reports she had requested from managers were not accurate. 

On June 1, she visited the Arthur Kaplan head office with six private security officials to dismiss some of the top managers and take control of some of the company’s documents and laptops. 

During that visit, the court was told during Mohamed's first bail appearance last Friday, Motala was involved in a stand-off with Mohamed's private assistant, 22-year-old Ammaarah Ismail. A video clip of the confrontation — in which Ismail is heard shouting loudly “Don’t touch me, don’t touch my stuff”, was played in court. 

Ismail made a call to Mohamed, who arrived within about 20 minutes and is alleged to have manhandled Motala and held his gun in her face. 

Mohamed denied this in court, saying he had been confronted at the office entrance by security, there had been a scuffle and he had fallen to the ground and his gun had dropped on the floor and been confiscated. 

Motala laid a charge against Mohamed, who was arrested immediately and has been in custody ever since. While Mohamed was in custody Motala managed to secure a high court order authorising her to search several properties and premises linked to Mohamed and other Arthur Kaplan staffers. She managed to execute these, but encountered only a number of empty safes and jewellery containers and boxes, but nothing of value. 

In an affidavit given to the court, Motala stated that she believed her life would be in danger if Mohamed were to be released. 

Mohamed told the court that he had at no time pointed his firearm at Motala, he denied assaulting her and stated that Ismail — whom Motala had described as Mohamed’s romantic partner and accomplice — was his personal assistant and nothing more. 

He offered to pay R100,000 bail, surrender his passport and remain under house arrest at his Morningside home until the case is finalised. 

Magistrate Liezel Davis postponed the matter to consider all the evidence but was prompted to postpone it again on Thursday as she wanted to hear from witness Thulane Ngubane from Arthur Kaplan holding company Luxe Holdings, and because of a technical glitch that had delayed her receiving all the transcripts she needed. 

Davis wanted to hear directly from Ngubane as he had laid a charge of assault against Mohamed last December. 

Testifying during his bail hearing, Mohamed said he had not assaulted Ngubane, that he had not aimed his firearm at him, and that the assault case had been thrown out of court because Ngubane had withdrawn the charges. Laurance Hodes SC, for Mohamed, presented the court with an affidavit signed by Ngubane in which he said he was withdrawing assault charges against Mohamed. 

However, testifying for the state, lawyer Ian Small Smith — who was in court on a watching brief for Motala — claimed that the Ngubane assault matter had not been properly investigated, that Ngubane had been extremely unhappy with how the matter had been handled, and was unhappy about the charges being dropped — with no reason for this having been recorded in the case docket.

Ngubane’s affidavit had been made in December and the case was withdrawn by the court only in March, when Mohamed was not present. 

It is this conflict that Davis seeks to clear up on Monday when Ngubane will be called to the witness box. Thereafter, Davis will give her judgment. 

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