The Judge revoked Rameez’s bail after the guilty verdict.
Convicted murderer Rameez Patel will remain behind bars until his sentencing for the murder of his wife, Fatima Patel.
Rameez, who appeared in the Polokwane High Court on Tuesday for judgment, had been standing trial for Fatima’s murder while out on R250 000 bail.
Handing down judgment, Judge Joseph Raulinga revoked Rameez’s bail after the guilty verdict.
Urgent applications
Following the verdict, Rameez’s attorney, Saleem Khan, filed two urgent applications on Wednesday: For the court to provide a summary of the pre-sentence report and for his bail to be extended until the sentencing concludes.
Khan argued that Rameez was the sole proprietor of his business and that his bail needed to be extended before a sentence could be imposed so that he could put his affairs in order.
“On 25 November 2025, I was convicted on one count of murder, one count of unlawful possession of a firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition.
“This honourable court is yet to impose a sentence on me on such convictions, and this is an application for me to be released on bail pending the imposition of such sentence.”
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Premeditation
However, the State argued that Rameez’s signed affidavit was not enough to allow him to be released on bail.
State prosecutor Advocate Lethabo Mashiane argued that the seriousness of the crime and Rameez’s conviction permit the court to revoke his bail.
“The court has already found that this particular murder was preplanned or premeditated, so it can’t be a Schedule 5 as my learned friend wants the court to understand, and therefore the onus is much higher that the applicant must now show exceptional circumstances why bail should be granted.”
‘You killed her’
Raulinga ruled that it would not be in the interests of justice to grant Rameez bail.
“Mr Patel, your wife is no more, and you know better than us what happened. You killed her. But for now, Mr Patel, I can’t allow you to go out. Your application fails, and the bail is revoked, and you must go into incarceration.”
The case has been scheduled for pre-sentencing proceedings on Tuesday, 17 December and Wednesday, 18 December 2025.
‘Pathological liar’
On Tuesday, Raulinga described Rameez as a “pathological liar” while finding him guilty of the murder of his wife.
The case, which has been bouncing around the court since 2016, when the trial first began, has been marred by delays due to Rameez changing lawyers numerous times.
Raulinga said he was not convinced by the defence’s evidence during the trial, saying Rameez may have misled the police during the in-loco inspection at the crime scene, as he was speaking a foreign language not understood by the officers.
“The court views the accused as a pathological liar. It is also disingenuous of him to say that a plastic bag containing such clothing was handed to Nkuna in a plastic bag when we know full well that not all clothes were handed in by the accused.”
Evidence presented by the defence during the trial contradicted the version of events initially given by Rameez, who had told investigators that intruders had broken into their home, a story he later changed.
Murder
Experts argued that Fatima sustained fatal blunt force trauma to her head, presumably caused by a heavy object, possibly a cricket bat.
Fatima’s body was found in a pool of blood at their Nirvana home in Limpopo after they allegedly had a fight.
An autopsy by forensic pathologist Dr Thakadu Mamashela revealed that Fatima was executed with a single shot to the head, indicating that at some point before her death, she was strangled and suffered blunt force trauma that dislocated her jaw, possibly caused by a cricket bat that was recovered from the ceiling of the apartment.
Other accusations
Rameez was also accused of killing his mother, Muhajeen, in front of her domestic worker. This case was provisionally withdrawn in 2021 due to insufficient evidence.
Rameez’s father, Firoz, was killed in an unsolved robbery, while Yunus Mayet, the father of his current wife, Nasreen, was kidnapped and murdered.
In 2018, his brother Razeen was shot days before he was due to testify against Rameez.
Rameez was released on bail in 2015 after being granted R250 000 bail.
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