Mine boss granted N$1m bail

ISRAELI manganese mine owner Boris Bannai, who was arrested in Windhoek at the end of last week, was granted bail of N$1 million yesterday.

Bannai can be released from custody if he deposits bail of N$1 million, and on condition that he must report to a local representative of Interpol every Wednesday morning, Magistrate Ruth Herunga ordered.At the request of one of Bannai’s lawyers, senior counsel Raymond Heathcote, the magistrate also directed that Bannai could pay half of the bail yesterday and the rest today.Associates of Bannai had only half a million Namibia dollars in cash with them at the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court when Magistrate Herunga made her ruling late yesterday afternoon.The magistrate said in her ruling that she had not been persuaded that Bannai, whose family owns the company Purity Manganese, which runs a manganese mine at Otjozondu, north-east of Okahandja, is likely to abscond from Namibia if he were to be released on bail.He has to appear before Magistrate Herunga again on April 23. By then an extradition request from the Polish government must have been received by the Namibian authorities.Bannai (54) was arrested on a provisional warrant of arrest which was issued in Namibia on March 8 at the request of the Polish authorities.Charges of fraud, money laundering and acting to the detriment of a company are pending against Bannai in Poland, the magistrate has been informed.A warrant for Bannai’s arrest was issued in Poland after Bannai had failed to adhere to a summons to attend legal proceedings in that country, it is claimed.Such a summons was never served on him, Bannai insisted in his testimony during the bail hearing on Monday.The summons is at the root of the proceedings which led to Bannai’s arrest, Magistrate Herunga remarked in her ruling. However, neither the summons itself, nor a copy of it or a return of service showing that the summons had been served on Bannai, has been placed before her, she said.As a result, there is no evidence before her to refute Bannai’s denial that he had received the summons, she said.Bannai charged on Monday that the charges on which he is wanted in Poland originate from a ‘criminal conspiracy by Polish organised crime’ against him. He claimed that he is facing attempts to get him removed from his position as the chairman of a company running a steel plant in Poland, and that the charges are part of a strategy now being employed in a bid to get him removed from his position in that company.Bannai also told the magistrate that he has been running Purity Manganese for the past 11 years. He claimed he has invested between N$200 million and N$300 million in Namibia, and that about 400 people are employed at the company’s mine.Bannai was represented by Heathcote and Sisa Namandje. Deputy Prosecutor General Jackson Kuutondokwa and Arrie Husselmann represented the State.