Rameez Patel seeks leave to appeal life sentence
Convicted businessman Rameez Patel has applied for leave to appeal his life sentence, with the application set to be heard on April 16.
POLOKWANE – From behind bars, businessman Rameez Patel has applied for leave to appeal his sentence imposed by retired Limpopo High Court judge Joseph Raulinga, meaning the matter has now been before the courts for 11 years.
The application for leave to appeal will be heard on April 16, after it was granted on Thursday.
In December last year, Raulinga found Patel guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment for the 2015 murder of his wife, Fatima, at their gated home in Nirvana. She was shot with an unlicensed firearm.
The firearm was never recovered, and the case relied on circumstantial evidence, closely related witnesses and expert testimony.
A year before the matter was transferred to a higher court, the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court granted Patel bail of R250 000.
However, after his conviction and incarceration, the judge dismissed an application for Patel’s release on bail pending appeal, leaving him to spend the festive season behind bars.
Patel’s legal representative, Adv Saleem Khan (SC), has persisted in bringing the matter back before Raulinga through an application for leave to appeal the sentence, which was heard on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
This follows the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Act, which stipulates that a presiding judge must grant or refuse leave for a judgment to be reconsidered by a full bench of judges in the same court or a higher court before an appeal can proceed.
On Wednesday, Raulinga said he was revisiting his judgment in preparation for presiding over the leave to appeal application. According to Khan, the judgment was read for the third time, having previously been delivered during both conviction and sentencing proceedings.
On Thursday, all parties agreed that the application would be heard on April 16. Khan later confirmed to the Polokwane Observer that, should leave to appeal be refused, his client would approach the Supreme Court of Appeal.
“The accused maintains his innocence and believes that a different presiding officer will consider the matter differently,” Khan said.
