Court hears Michael Lomas had ‘unfortunate fall’ in prison cell
During his brief appearance before the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court on Monday, Lomas’ lawyers disclosed that he had to be seen by medics after falling in his cell.
Lomas’ lawyer, Mannie Witz, said the 77-year-old experienced a nosebleed and his hand was “badly cut” as a result of the fall.
“Apparently, the lights had gone off, and he was feeling his way back to his bed, and he slipped and fell and hit his head on the basin. There was nothing from the other prisoners or the authorities. It was an unfortunate and obviously age-related [fall]. He’s not a young man anymore, and he took quite a bad knock.”
Lomas had to be examined by doctors at the facility, which delayed his appearance at the Palm Ridge court.
According to his legal representative, the accused doesn’t travel with other prisoners to court as part of an undertaking made by the South African authorities during the extradition talks.
“He comes with the investigating team. He was extradited from the UK, and he’s a resident of England. There’s a whole lot of conditions that the English government have imposed, the same as Mr Dewani, to make sure that he’s properly treated in the republic of South Africa,” explained Witz.
He said that the South African government was upholding the agreed conditions so far and that there were no complaints.
On Monday, the state was granted its application to have the multi-million-rand fraud case against Lomas transferred to the High Court, where he would be appearing alongside 11 others.
Lomas’ matter was scheduled to be heard on 3 December 2024 at the high court for case management.
They all face over 60 counts of corruption linked to the R1.4 billion contract for the upgrade of Eskom’s Kusile power station in Mpumalanga between 2014 and 2017.
These constitute schedule five offences, which place the onus to convince the court that the interest of justice permits the release on bail of the accused person.
Witz explained why, after being in custody for over a month, Lomas was not seeking bail at this stage.
“His ex-wife, that he was married to here in South Africa, lives in another province, and they are not together anymore. The most important thing is that you have to show some type of tie, emotionally, workwise, residence wise [to get bail. So, we’ve been trying to get him into a frail care facility so that he’s got a permanent address. At this stage, he doesn’t have a permanent address.”
In court, Witz clarified that Lomas was not abandoning his right to apply for bail.
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