Cape Town | Tuesday
SA South African court on Monday remanded in custody two brothers suspected of posting a hoax e-mail on the Internet claiming that South Africans were involved in last week’s terrorist attacks on the United States.
William and Christiaan Conradie will be kept in custody for two days to allow investigators time to trace the route of the e-mail on the Internet and to obtain statements from people who received it.
State prosecutor Rodney de Kock said the brothers, aged 26 and 35, faced charges of sabotage and possibly of fraud as the e-mail had affected the South African economy, including the value of the rand.
The e-mail purported to be a CNN article reporting that US Secretary of State Colin Powell had hinted that the South African government itself could be involved in the attacks.
It also said that video footage ”revealed that at least three South Africans boarded each fatal plane” which crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
According to reports, they had sent the e-mail to the central Reserve Bank and commercial banks last Thursday.
The Conradie brothers are due to appear again in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court, just outside Cape Town, on Wednesday. – AFP