Cronje fit for cross-examination

Hansie Cronje is suffering from clinical depression, the King commission heard on Wednesday, but was still capable of undergoing cross-examination.

Shortly before Cronje took the stand for the second time during the hearings, Dr Ian Lewis, a psychiatrist who has been treating Cronje, testified that the former captain displayed "seven or eight" of the nine symptoms associated with severe depression.

He said that one of the symptoms, insomnia, had been alleviated by the prescription of sleeping pills, but he still displayed several other symptoms, including loss of concentration, low energy, thoughts of death and dying, loss of appetite and weight loss and a loss of interest in pleasure.

But Dr Lewis felt Cronje was capable of giving evidence if it was remembered that he might have difficulty concentrating and might suffer lapses of memory.

Despite this warning, Cronje seemed more animated than had been the case last Thursday when he read out a 22-page statement as his evidence-in-chief. Malcolm Wallis, representing Cronje, took his client back through parts of his earlier evidence and established that Cronje had enjoyed, in his own words, "a high standard of living" as an international cricketer.

Cronje re-iterated much of the evidence he had given on Thursday, including his first meeting with "John", a bookmaker who had offered him US$10 000 dollars to throw a Mandela Cup final match against Pakistan in Cape Town in 1995. Cronje, who testified that although being captain, he was the youngest member of the South African team, admitted to being tempted by the offer.

"I wish I could say I told him to get lost," said Cronje, "but I was a little bit tempted."

He said he told Pat Symcox of the offer, and Symcox's response was that South Africa had a good chance of winning and that the offer was not big enough to be considered.

"He didn't tell me to throw myself off a high building or anything like that," said Cronje.

Shortly before the adjournment, and in reference to money paid to him by Mukesh Gupta, Cronje revealed that an additional amount had been paid into his NBS account in Bloemfontein after the 1997 Test match against India at Newlands. This new amount, slightly more than R139 000, was in addition to an amount of R231 000 transferred into his account by Gupta.

Cronje said he was not entirely sure what the second amount had been paid to him for, and speculated that two different payments had been made because he had supplied information on team selection in the first Test in Durban, and told Gupta of the timing of his declaration in the second Test.