OWN CORRESPONDENTS AND DAVID LE PAGE, Johannesburg | Friday 3.30pm.
THE last suspect detained for questioning in connection with the bombing of the Palnet Hollywood restaurant at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront has been released. TWO women detained on Thursday at Cape Town International Airport, on suspicion of involvement in Tuesday night’s bombing of the waterfront Planet Hollywood restaurant, have been released.
The women were detained following an anonymous tipoff to police, and held over alleged discrepancies on their passports. They were on their way to Egypt, following which they were going on pilgrimage. Those discrepancies have now been cleared up, according to Superintendent John Sterrenberg.
Though they were to have appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on Friday on aliens control charges, Bellville prosecutor SM Galloway said the proposed charges were without merit and have been dropped.
But charges stand against their male companion, a member of Muslim vigilante group People Against Gangsterism And Drugs, who is still being questioned by police.
Eighty Pagad members and supporters protested their arrests outside Justice Minister Dullah Omar’s Rylands home on the Cape Flats, late on Thursday night.
Omar would not speak to them, and says he will only consider meeting them if they submit to him a list of their grievances.
The protesters dispersed at 12.30am on Friday, saying they hold Omar and the police for any possible violence.