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Cassim's June 26 testimony

MR CASSIM: I mean, if you put something in the safe and take it out there, if it had been a letter or an envelope or just an ordinary documentation, I'm sure you wouldn't leave it in the safe.

MS BATOHI: No, no, Mr Cassim. You understand my question perfectly. Why do you think it was dollars, and not as opposed to rands or pounds, for that matter, because Mr - bearing in mind Mr Chawla was coming from London. Why did you say dollars? Why did you say dollars? Why did you think there were dollars in that envelope? Just explain that.

MR CASSIM: Mr Chawla said, 'Keep this money. We'll have further discussions.'

MS BATOHI: No. It still doesn't answer my question.

COMMISSIONER: May I ask you this? When Mr Chawla reimbursed you for the cost of your ticket, and he paid you in cash, what sort of money was that? Dollars?

MR CASSIM: He paid me in Rands.

COMMISSIONER: Rands?

MR CASSIM: That's correct.

COMMISSIONER: But you say that you think that the money that was in the envelope given to Mr Cronjé was in dollars?

MR CASSIM: That's correct.

MS BATOHI: Well, look, Mr Cassim, there must be some basis for you to think that. You can't just think it was dollars for no reason. So unless you have some knowledge about what was in there, why did you presume - give us a basis for that. Why did you presume that it was Dollars? You may have a very good reason for it. Tell us why you thought it was dollars.

MR CASSIM: I suppose when Sanjay took the money - the envelope out of the safe, I mean, it couldn't have been anything else to give to Mr Cronjé.

MS BATOHI: Why? It could have been Rands. He paid you in rands. It could have been pounds, he's coming from London. Why do you presume it's dollars?

MR CASSIM: I can't tell you why I presume it was dollars, but it just came to my mind that it must have been dollars.

MS BATOHI: I just find it strange why it just came to your mind that it was dollars. Did some - was there some discussion there about what was in that envelope?

MR CASSIM: Not that I can recall.

MS BATOHI: Mr Cronjé or Mr Chawla at some later stage tell you what was in that envelope?

MR CASSIM: No.

MS BATOHI: For the last time, why did you think it was dollars?

MR CASSIM: I can't answer that, Adv Batohi. It just came to my mind it was dollars.

COMMISSIONER: But what was the cost of a flight, return flight Johannesburg/Durban? What, about R1 500, something like that?

MR CASSIM: It was R1 380 I think.

COMMISSIONER: And he happened to have R1 380 available to himself to give to you. That also strikes me as curious.

MR CASSIM: That's correct. He had it by him, R1 380.

MS BATOHI: Just on that aspect of the phone call which my learned friend Mr Manca spoke to you about, I'm referring now to page 16 of your statement, paragraph 8.26. Do you have that? It says clearly in the first, in the statement that I have that it was - you received: "....a phone call from Sanjay asking you if you could contact Mr Cronjé he was not able to get through to him on his mobile. I thereafter contacted Mr Cronjé and told him that Sanjay was trying to get hold of him. And I heard nothing further." Now it's apparent from that context of state - of that particular paragraph, you're talking about a single phone call. Before the change, okay? You say: "I had a phone call. I phoned Mr Cronjé, contacted him and I heard nothing further." Okay? And then over this weekend you changed that to phone calls. Is that correct?

MR CASSIM: That's correct.

MS BATOHI: And that would have been after Mr Cronjé's testimony and after the diagram regarding the cellphones had been handed to all counsel on Friday, isn't that so? It's not - there's nothing to think about, Mr Cassim. You get the diagram on Friday, it's two days ago, and on the weekend you change that to read 'phone calls'. Isn't that correct?

MR CASSIM: I changed it to - I changed it on - we changed it over the weekend, yes. It was phone calls and not a phone call.

MS BATOHI: Yes. So what I'm saying to you is that after you get the diagram, which clearly shows a number of phone calls, you then changed that to 'phone calls'. Isn't it because of what you saw in the diagram, you realised that you statement - you were going to be caught out in this regard?

MR CASSIM: No.

MS BATOHI: Why - what made you changed this to 'phone calls' then?

MR CASSIM: Because I know I have made numerous calls, not only to Hansie, to all the players. If you take it in context, probably in a year - it could be 500 calls to all the players.

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