By Leila Samodien
Former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown has had living arrangements and even a job set out for him for the coming months after being granted R10 000 bail in the Cape Town Regional Court.
The money was paid by his stepfather, Stephanus Lategan.
Brown faces charges of fraud, allegedly for misappropriating millions of rands put in the trust of Fidentia.
His lawyer Rashad Khan on Monday said Brown would be living with Lategan temporarily - but could not say for how long and where he would live after that.
He would also soon start working at a friend's company.
Khan said Brown would also be kept busy launching court applications against the Scorpions, saying the specialised investigative unit violated his rights during their probe.
Magistrate Justhree Steyn on Monday found the State's case was too weak to convince the court that Brown should not get bail. He said defence evidence showed Brown was not a flight risk and there was no likelihood of him interfering with State witnesses.
The State had previously argued that Brown was a flight risk because his wife, Susan, and their two children made a ""surreptitious"" move to Australia, where they are still.
Steyn believed the defence offered a more convincing argument, in which it had said that Brown had a two-week opportunity (after his wife's move) to join his family in Australia but had not.
In terms of his bail conditions, Brown is forbidden from travelling outside the country and may not come within 500m of any international point of entry or departure. He also had to hand in his passports. He would also be required to report to the Milnerton police station every day, make prior arrangements if he wished to leave the magisterial districts of Bellville and Cape Town and inform the investigating officers of any change in his contact details. Brown returns to court on November 5 for the ongoing fraud trial.
In a news item issued on Friday, dealing with a bail application being made by Brown, Sapa incorrectly reported that a sum of R1,3-billion had been transferred into the personal account of Susan Brown, the accused's wife, ""from the Old Mutual insurance giant"". In fact, Old Mutual transferred the R1,3-billion into the bank trust account of Mantadia Asset Trust Company.
- This article was originally published on page 4 of The Cape Argus on October 28, 2008