Testimonies of pain from the father of Leigh Matthews and the father of the man who confessed to killing her, Donovan Moodley, were heard in the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday. Rob Matthews told the court that Moodley has conducted himself in a way that no longer gives him a right to life.
Donovan Moodley was found guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday for kidnapping and murdering student Leigh Matthews and for extorting money from her parents. In a statement, read by advocate Johan Pretorius, Moodley gave a detailed account of how he planned and executed the kidnapping and murder.
The Department of Labour has intervened in Friday’s crippling South African Airways (SAA) strike, the United Association of SA trade union said. General manager Andre Venter said this followed a request to Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana to put pressure on SAA management to resume wage talks.
Leigh Matthews’s father, Rob, said on Tuesday his family is ready to testify at the trial of Donovan Moodley, who allegedly kidnapped and murdered the 21-year-old university student. According to the indictment, all the members of the Matthews family will give evidence at the trial, which starts on Monday.
The mass evictions from a building in Bree Street in central Johannesburg are ”utterly barbaric” and unconstitutional, a legal expert said at the site on Thursday afternoon. Stuart Woolfson, of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, said to evict people without giving them interim shelter is cruel and an abuse of human rights.
About 700 illegal occupants were evicted from a Bree Street office building in central Johannesburg on Thursday. The building was pronounced unsafe by the Johannesburg City Council. A municipal spokesperson said between 500 and 700 people were evicted, and those left homeless said they were ”desperate, confused and stranded”.
The Zimbabwean government’s demolition of houses and policy of forced removals must be stopped, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) said on Wednesday. ”In God’s name, stop Operation Murambatsvina,” the SACC central committee concluded after a two-day meeting held in Johannesburg.
From next year, world leaders visiting South Africa will undergo a similar ritual to Hollywood film stars leaving behind a concrete imprint of their palms to ensure they are remembered. They will leave behind a symbolic footprint at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, currently receiving a major makeover.
Headman Nkonzo was clutching a hosepipe on level 32 of shaft four at East Driefontein gold mine on Monday when the earth began shaking violently. The 53-year-old mineworker said all he could think when the rocks began falling was that he was going to die. ”I was scared, it was all too much,” he said.
South Africans are not scared of this year’s unluckiest day, Friday May 13. But if you, along with more than 20-million Americans, suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th), then perhaps you should be extra careful. It also seems there are no couples brave enough to tie the knot on a Friday the 13th.