State set to have Angelo Agrizzi medically examined after TV appearance

The state is set to perform its own medical examination on corruption accused Angelo Agrizzi after his appearance on a television show in September despite a medical report from his team saying he is not fit for trial.

The Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Tuesday postponed the case to December 2.

Sindisiwe Seboka, spokesperson of the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA’s) Investigating Directorate (ID), said the case has been postponed to allow for the medical examination to take place.

“We have to get a medical examiner to assess him even though he has provided a detailed [diagnosis] — through his own doctor — as to why he had not been able to stand trial,” Seboka said.

She said it was due to Agrizzi’s continued absence that the state had separated his trial from that of his former co-accused, former parliamentarian Vincent Smith.

“We have seen that, even though he has not been able to come to court many times, he has been doing television interviews, which puts us in a situation where we wondered if the medical certificate he provided is a true reflection of whether he is able to stand trial,” Seboka said.

Smith and Agrizzi have been charged with corruption.

The ID said the charges stem from Bosasa through Agrizzi allegedly offering Smith gratifications in the form of security upgrades to his Gauteng home and Smith’s acceptance of cash transferred into his personal bank account via the bank account of his company, Euro Blitz.

Seboka said Smith’s additional charges involve fraud, money laundering and tax fraud.

She said that before coming to court, Agrizzi’s legal team advised he is willing to do the examination.

Smith also appeared before the court, which was sitting in an outside corridor as courtrooms were dark due to a power outage in the building.

His case was postponed to January 21 because additional pages of the docket have to be concluded and provided to the accused.

“The final indictment has already been provided to him. All pretrial matters have been done. The final indictment has added tax fraud charges that we have been saying were looming for a time, which amount to about R28m of undisclosed tax amounts to the tax collector.”

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