Ajay Gupta

Hawks confirm they are “finalising” Gupta extradition deal with United Arab Emirates

The Gupta family have been heavily implicated in almost all the major instances of state capture over the course of the Zuma lawyers.

Ajay Gupta

The Hawks have spent the last few months reassuring the South African public that the Gupta family will eventually face justice. With the “main” brothers all fleeing the country just before the Hawks carried out their Saxonwold raid, it was always going to be a nightmare to get the family before an SA judge.

Gupta extradition: Will the Hawks get it sorted?

On Wednesday, Hawks head Lt-Gen, Godfrey Lebeya told the parliamentary committee on police that they were finalising the extradition of some of the family members from the United Arab Emirates.

For a variety of obvious reasons, Lebaya elected to keep the specific details under lock and key.

The subject of extradition became a national talking point back in February with Ajay Gupta declared a fugitive in SA.

Sure enough, video footage of him coming out of a business park in Dubai came to the boil in. A South African businessman asked him if he would return to South Africa. He said yes, but the man behind the camera was then taken in for police questioning.

The police’s top crime-busting unit has been looking into different cases of state capture after numerous cases were opened against the family in 2017.

Minister of Police, Bheki Cele also addressed the committee and revealed that the case against Duduzane Zuma will proceed in January 2019.

Last month, former president Jacob Zuma’s son raised eyebrows and actually gathered a bit of sympathy after appearing in court shackled at the ankles.

Both police, Cele and the Hawks were forced to come out and declare that they were not the ones who shackled Zuma. Instead, prison officials locked the ankle chains as the building used by the commercial crime court was not suitable.

Zuma will appear in relation to charges that he allegedly tried to bribe former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas.