#SiamLee: State reveals 12 new cases of fraud against accused

TWO days after murdered Siam Lee would have celebrated her 21st birthday, the formal bail hearing of the man accused of kidnapping and killing her in January continued at the Durban Magistrate’s Court.

Lee’s mother, Carmen Nan Lee said the weekend had been a difficult time for her.

“I wanted to arrange a special gathering on the beach, perhaps to scatter her ashes, but I just wasn’t in the right space,” she said. Instead, Nan Lee spent Sunday at church where, she said, she mourned the loss of her only daughter.

Surekha Marimuthu continued her cross examination of the man who cannot be named as a rape charge has been added to the list of charges against him.

ALSO READ: Police search for missing Durban North woman

Last month Marimuthu began questioning the accused on allegations of criminal activity at his business premises in Germiston, for which a summons had been issued. He is due to appear in court in June.

However, the man, smartly dressed in a blue check jacket with navy blue pants claimed today he had not been aware of the summons until recently.

“I would have loved if it had been delivered to me timeously,” he said. “I only became aware of it during my last appearance.”

Marimuthu also announced that 12 new cases of fraud had been opened against the accused since his arrest.

“These cases have only recently been opened because the complainants alleged that they could not find the accused,” she said.

Six of the fraud cases were opened in Gauteng, while four were opened in KwaZulu-Natal.

There are also two arrest warrants waiting to be served on cases of fraud.

ALSO READ: Body discovered in KZN Midlands believed to be Siam Lee 

In all these cases, said Marimuthu, the same modus operandi was followed – the victims were allegedly scammed out of R5 000 to R25 000.

Tensions rose in the court as the accused’s advocate, Martin Krog, argued that they had not been made aware of the new cases.

His client also claimed that police were behind the slew of new cases.

“I am an honest businessman,” he said.

“I have never committed fraud in my life. This has happened before. The same cases have been thrown out at the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court. They have been phoning these people and asking them to open these cases against me,” he said.

The accused, who is a self-proclaimed businessman, also faces charges of rape, murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, pointing a firearm, assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, intimidation, two charges of crimen injuria as well as two cases of kidnapping.

Krog previously claimed that his client had been arrested in the absence of police, that his house was illegally searched and that that photos of the Assagay resident were leaked on private investigator, Brad Nathanson’s ,Facebook page before his client had been asked to plead. Nathason investigated Siam’s disappearance from her place of work in Margaret Maytom Avenue, Durban and consequently nabbed the accused at his plush Assagay home in January.

The 29-year-old suspect also relayed to the court how he was allegedly beaten and suffocated with a plastic evidence bag. He claimed to have been coerced into confessing to the murder of the woman who was 20 years old at the time.

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