Chartered accountant Hussun Abdul Khalek Omar, the erstwhile director and CEO of Shariah-compliant property holding group Amaanat Investment Holdings (AIH), has been ordered to pay back more than R354m he stole from the group.

This follows a recent arbitration award issued by retired Judge Ashley Binns-Ward in a civil action AIH instituted against Omar.

By agreement, the matter was referred to arbitration. TimesLIVE reports that the award was filed in a related civil matter pending before the KZN High Court (Durban).

In the 103-page ruling, the judge said AIH had proved its claim against Omar personally, that he had used the funds without authorisation and had ‘committed theft in the civil law sense of the concept’.

This, the judge said, was based in part on his acceptance of evidence that Omar, who was also the managing partner of accounting firm Kreston KZN, had ‘confessed’ to AIH attorney MS Omar that he had withdrawn about R40m from AIH without board and shareholder authority.

He offered to reimburse the money. During the arbitration proceedings, he claimed that money had been paid for services provided by Kreston on invoice.

However, Binns-Ward said the invoices ‘characterised by features suggestive that they had been fabricated’ and Omar was obliged to explain them.

In July Omar made a first appearance in the Durban Magistrate’s Court facing 22 counts of fraud (alternatively theft) and 12 counts of money laundering.

The criminal charges are grounded in allegations that while serving as director of AIH and the managing partner of Kreston KZN he plundered more than R29m. 

TimesLIVE notes that the victims were the 6 500 shareholders of AIH, many of them vulnerable Muslim pensioners and single mothers, who were dependent on the income they received from a return on the profits of rentals generated from the properties owned by the group.

In his bail application, he denied the allegations. He will appear in court again in October.

In the civil matter in which AIH sued him for R650m, Binns-Ward said Omar had ‘shifted his defence’ but ‘did not venture into the witness stand’ to explain this.

Omar has until October to lodge an intention to appeal the award which, in terms of the arbitration agreement, will be heard by three retired judges.

Full TimesLIVE report