Former African National Congress (ANC) member of parliament (MP) Vincent Smith and co-accused Angelo Agrizzi are on Thursday morning expected to appear in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court, sitting in Palmridge in Ekurhuleni.
They are appearing in relation to bribery allegations in the BOSASA State Capture scandal.
Smith faces charges of fraud and corruption involving about R800 000 and is out on R30 000 bail.
Agrizzi is facing a corruption charge which relates to the payments made to Smith. One of the conditions that Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng set is that Agrizzi should check in with police once a week.
NPA Spokesperson Sindisiwe Twala says, “Now that this particular court has taken the decision to overrule the initial court’s decision, we are not at all worried because we have that guarantees that we’ve sought from the onset.”
She adds: “We now have a guarantee that his villa in Italy is now going to be handed over to us in terms of a title deed, passports must be handed over by the 3rd of November, by the 10th of November that title deed as well as various other disclosures about his property and that of his common law wife will be disclosed. Failure to disclose all of this and if we and various other persons find out that there’s stuff he has not disclosed unfortunately his bail will be revoked.”
The video below is of Vincent Smith and Angelo Agrizzi’s last Court appearance:
Title deeds
After the last court appearance, Agrizzi’s lawyer Daniel Witz said they agreed to ensure his bail by handing over the title deeds to his villa in Italy amounting to at least R17-million.
“The state requested some form of security in order to secure his bail and after negotiations, the property in Italy what is the value of the property was put up as security as a bail amount. At the time that it was purchased and the current rand value and Agrizzi will give a guarantee that should he evade his trial or should his bail be revoked the NPA will inherit the house. It was purchased for give-or-take R17 million.”
Witz says, “We’ll take the stamped court order to the prison authorities they will confirm it and they will call the guards back and he will be released on bail and unshackled from the bed.”
