An accountant who is facing an application to have his suspended sentence for fraud put into action, missed his scheduled court date because he was recovering from an overdose.
|||Cape Town – An overdose caused an accountant’s admission to hospital last week, as well as his failure to appear in court.
Although a warrant was authorised last Tuesday for his immediate arrest, Abraham van der Linde, 38, appeared in court on Monday of his own volition, the Specialised Commercial Crime Court heard.
Prosecutor Jacques Smith handed to the court a letter from the Karl Bremmer Hospital, in Cape Town’s northern suburbs, that certified that Van der Linde had been admitted on May 3 for various listed reasons, including the overdose and severe depression.
The letter did not indicate what Van der Linde had overdosed on.
Van der Linde appeared before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, who warned him to appear again on May 16, when his defence advocate Gilbert Jose would also be present.
Van der Linde faces an application to have a 10-year suspended prison sentence put into operation, for his failure to repay R1 281 842 that he embezzled from his employer.
In October last year, he pleaded guilty to 41 counts of fraud and one of money laundering.
On the fraud charges, he was given a 10-year prison sentence, suspended for five years on condition he repaid the money in four monthly installments ending in April this year.
He was also sentenced to three years house arrest, which included cleaning and maintenance at the Parow police station in Cape Town’s northern suburbs.
The proceedings last year took the form of a plea bargain.
According to an affidavit on record, filed by Donald Swanepoel, the managing director of the advertising company that had engaged Van der Linde as the company accountant, Van der Linde had failed to make the first repayment of R701 842.
In addition to the 10-year suspended prison sentence for fraud, Van der Linde was also sentenced to five years imprisonment, also suspended for five years, on the money laundering charge.
African News Agency