National Director of Public Prosecutions of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Advocate Shamila Batohi, says the entity is facing challenges in its bid to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta back to South Africa from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to face charges including fraud and money laundering related to State Capture.
The extradition request to the UAE was rejected in April last year and Batohi said follow ups on finding reasons why have not been responded to by their Middle Eastern counterparts.
“We have been trying very hard to find out some very basic things like what exactly [is] the problem with our extradition request. We’ve not had satisfactory responses from the UAE.
“We’ve been trying to…set up a meeting with the national director and the head of the prosecuting authority in the UAE in order for us to understand this. We’ve not been able to schedule that meeting for months,” she said.
Batothi explained that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has taken steps to request political intervention from the Presidency.
She revealed that the entity had briefed Deputy President Paul Mashatile on the matter ahead of his working visit to the UAE this week.
“We’ve decided, as the NPA, that we needed the President of this country to intervene with the ruler of the UAE because we realised that unless there isn’t that strong political push in the UAE, we’re going to struggle with this matter.
“Mutual legal assistance, ultimately…it depends on political will and if the leaders in a country do not want to cooperate with you, there’s no way you can get that cooperation.
“What we hope the DP [Deputy President] will be able to do – we have briefed him fully – is really to get the commitment from the rulers of the UAE at the highest level, for them to understand the importance of these cases to South Africa and for them to get the commitment at the highest level that the UAE will support South Africa in our requests,” she said.
In September 2023, the Department of Justice and Correctional Services in a statement said it had now been requested to resubmit a new extradition request.
This after the UAE in April 2023, rejected South Africa’s extradition request for the brothers, which the department described then as “inconsistent with article 17 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, to which both nations are a signatory”.
READ | Justice dept gives Gupta brothers extradition update
– SAnews.gov.za
