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Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
A Gweru entrepreneur Mr Taleb Mohamad, who was last year arrested for allegedly swindling a business partner of $200 000 in a mining deal, was last week cleared of any wrongdoing by the court.
Mr Mohamad (52), a Lebanese, is the director of Acquirium Trading (Pvt) Ltd.
He was being accused of converting $200 000, part of the funds injected into the company for a mining joint venture by a partner Tamira Overseas, to his personal use.
Mr Mohamad, initially appeared at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts charged with theft of trust funds, but the case was later moved to Gweru where he stayed.
A Gweru regional magistrate last Tuesday found Mr Mohamad not guilty and acquitted him after the State failed to prosecute the matter after a plea of not guilty had already been tendered.
The complainant in the matter was Tamira Overseas SA, which claimed it owned 48 percent stake in Acquirium Trading (Pvt) Ltd.
Tamira Overseas was represented by Heena Jayant Joshi.
It was alleged that sometime in April 2012 Joshi met Mohamad and a Russian, Nocolay Verenko, who was also a partner in Tamira Overseas SA and discussed the possibility of a joint venture mining business.
An agreement was signed on September 2, 2012 and Joshi offered to fund the mining operation.
Joshi injected over $3,1 million into Acquirium Trading’s Bank ABC account for the project and they accused Mr Mohamad of stealing $200 000.
However, Mr Mohamad’s lawyer Mr Alec Muchadehama of Mbidzo, Muchadehama and Makoni crafted a defence outline denying the allegations.
Mr Mahomad argued that there were only two shareholders of Acquirium—himself (60percent) and Ms Sandra Van Rooyen (40 percent) and that Tamira was not part of the company’s owners.
He denied ever stealing the $200 000 arguing that there was never a meaningful audit to prove the allegations and that Acquirium, being the owner of the monies injected, never complained of any theft.
Mr Mahomad argued that the matter was more of a shareholders’ dispute than a criminal case hence the criminal court had no role to play.
Online Reporter