An Israeli national charged with diamond theft in Namibia worth €2.6 million (€2m) was released after the state withdrew the case.
Erez Ben Shushan was arrested in September after polished and unpolished diamonds were stolen from a safe at NamGem, a subsidiary of the Namdeb diamond company, a joint venture of the Namibian government and De Beers 70kms north of the capital, Windhoek.
He was released on bail of about $14,000 soon afterwards, his passport was confiscated and he had to report to the Okahandja police station three times per week.
‘The case against Israeli national Erez Ben Shushan at the court of Okahandja has been withdrawn for the time being on instructions of the prosecutor general. This will allow further police investigation,’ a court official in the town of Okahandja told AFP.
Mr Shushan was production manager at NamGem and also a representative of Lazare Kaplan International, a diamond manufacturing and distribution company based in United States.
Diamond exports are still rebounding from the global economic crisis last year, which slashed Namdeb's revenue by 40%.
Namdeb now says diamond production more than doubled in the first six months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009.
