National Director of Public Prosecutions in the NPA, Advocate Shamila Batohi, says the entity is facing challenges in its bid to extradite Gupta brothers, Atul and Rajesh, back to South Africa from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The two Gupta brothers are facing several charges including fraud and money laundering in connection to the so called “State Capture”.
The NPA’s extradition request to the UAE was rejected in April last year and Batohi said follow ups on finding reasons why have not been responded to by their Middle Eastern counterparts.
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“We have been trying very hard to find out some very basic things like what exactly [could be] the problem with our extradition request. We’ve not had satisfactory responses from the UAE.
“We’ve been trying to…set up a meeting with the national director and the head of the prosecuting authority in the UAE in order for us to understand this. We’ve not been able to schedule that meeting for months,” said Batohi.
She revealed that the National Prosecuting Authority has taken steps to request political intervention from the Presidency, adding that the entity had briefed Deputy President Paul Mashatile on the matter ahead of his working visit to the UAE this week.
“We’ve decided, as the NPA, that we needed the President of this country to intervene with the ruler of the UAE because we realised that unless there isn’t that strong political push in the UAE, we’re going to struggle with this matter,” she said.
