The pending prosecution of murdered mining magnate Brett Kebble by the National Prosecuting Authority has been cancelled.

Kebble had been due to go on trial next month in connection with fraud charges in relation to a takeover battle five years ago, and the disappearance of shares to the value of R1.67-billion. NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said yesterday that the case had been closed.

"He is dead and the fact of the matter is that we do not pursue investigations and prosecutions into people who are no longer living," said Nkosi.

He declined to comment on whether there would still be investigations into Kebble's business partners or associates. According to a regulatory filing by Randgold Resources with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington on June 30 this year, it was made clear that 14.4-million shares that Randgold and Exploration (R&E) claimed to hold in Randgold Resources had gone missing. The claim was repeated last Friday.

Kebble, who was forced out as the chief executive of R&E (and also JCI Limited and Western Areas) on August 30, had sold the shares without the permission of either his board of directors or shareholders in R&E. Moneyweb, a financial website, said there appeared to be a fair chance that at least some of the money went to Anglo American, for a bunch of Western Areas shares that Kebble had band-aided into an empowerment entity, Inkwenkwezi, via Bookmark, a shadowy financial entity.

R&E's audited financial statements for the year to December 31 2004 are yet to be published. R&E was suspended from the JSE on August 1, and delisted from the Nasdaq in the US last Wednesday night because it had failed to post its results.

"It is becoming increasingly apparent that Kebble had little, if any, intention of ever publishing R&E's audited 2004 figures," Moneyweb said.

R&E's new CEO, Peter Gray, last Thursday announced the withdrawal of R&E's preliminary (unaudited) 2004 results, published on April 29. On the same day, R&E's auditors, Charles Orbach & Co, resigned. Kebble insisted that the stock had been "lent" and would be returned to R&E in mid-2006.

The website said Kebble had been known to give special and detailed attention to ensuring that people important to him were paid plenty of money. In the year to March 31 2004, the directors of JCI were paid R12-million, double the amount paid the year before.

"Consulting and management fees", which are nowhere explained, rose to R54-million from R23-million.

With acknowledgements to Graeme Hosken, Sapa and The Mercury.