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/ 27 February 2008

Court rejects Najwa Petersen’s second bail bid

The Cape High Court on Wednesday rejected a second bail bid by murder accused Najwa Petersen, expressing scepticism over her ”almost miraculous recovery” from mental illness. ”The appellant’s case relating to her precarious state of health, as presented in the first bail application, appears to have undergone a complete volte-face in the second,” the judges said.

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/ 19 February 2008

Delft evictions under way

Evictions have begun at the housing development in Delft illegally occupied by backyard dwellers, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign said on Tuesday morning. A Cape High Court judge on Monday refused the more than 1 000 squatters leave to appeal against an earlier eviction order.

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/ 18 February 2008

Court not swayed by Delft appeal application

The Cape High Court on Monday dismissed an application for leave to appeal against an eviction order that compelled illegal occupiers of unfinished homes in Delft on the Cape Flats to vacate their houses by 6pm last Sunday. Judge Deon van Zyl ruled late on Monday that the grounds for appeal were altogether without merit.

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/ 6 February 2008

Court chaos over Delft eviction order

Pandemonium broke out in the Cape High Court on Wednesday after Judge Deon van Zyl granted an order for the eviction of people illegally occupying houses still under construction in Delft on the Cape Flats. The homes are intended for residents at the Joe Slovo informal settlement, who are to be relocated to Delft.

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/ 5 December 2007

Van der Vyver may sue state for wrongful prosecution

The family of Fred van der Vyver, the acquitted accused in the Inge Lotz murder case, intends suing the state for his wrongful prosecution, the Times online reported on Wednesday. Van der Vyver’s father, Louis, said the next logical step would be an investigation into the actions of the detectives responsible for presenting controversial fingerprint evidence.

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/ 23 October 2007

End in sight at Lotz murder trial

The trial of actuary Fred van der Vyver, accused of murdering his student girlfriend Inge Lotz, appears to be drawing to a close. Prosecutor Carine Theunissen told the Cape High Court on Tuesday she would finish her cross-examination of Van der Vyver on Wednesday morning.

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/ 22 October 2007

Lotz murder accused: We were in love

Murder accused Fred van der Vyver and his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, were deeply in love at the time she died, the young man told the Cape High Court on Monday. On the morning of her death on March 16 2005, they parted with hugs and kisses as he left to attend a class at the University of Stellenbosch, he said. ”I was very much in love with her,” he said.

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/ 22 October 2007

‘I never used the hammer’

Murder accused Fred van der Vyver told the Cape High Court on Monday that he never used the ornamental hammer that the state says could have been a murder weapon. Van der Vyver, accused of bludgeoning his student girlfriend Inge Lotz to death in her Stellenbosch flat in 2005, was starting his second day of cross-examination.

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/ 17 October 2007

Accused denies Lotz hammer murder

At the end of an emotional day of testimony, murder accused Fred van der Vyver on Wednesday formally denied that he killed his student girlfriend Inge Lotz. Van der Vyver was in the witness box for the second day, following a successful application by his defence team to reopen its case to hear his testimony.

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/ 16 October 2007

Lotz murder accused takes the stand

Murder victim Inge Lotz broke down in tears on the morning of her murder, her former boyfriend, Fred van der Vyver, who is accused of killing her, told the Cape Town High Court on Tuesday. Van der Vyver took the stand after an apparently precedent-setting ruling by Judge Deon van Zyl, which allowed the defence to reopen its case when final arguments were already under way.

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/ 2 October 2007

Surprise move in Lotz murder trial

Murder accused Fred van der Vyver’s legal team has told the Cape High Court it wants him to testify in his own defence. The surprise move came on Tuesday afternoon after the state had already delivered its closing arguments, and Van der Vyver’s advocate Dup de Bruyn had begun his.