An American fingerprint expert on Monday accused South African police of fabricating fingerprint evidence to secure a conviction in the Inge Lotz hammer murder. The expert, Pat Wertheim, was the first witness called in defence of accused Fred van der Vyver, who has elected not to testify himself.
Hammer-murder accused Fred van der Vyver could have been tipped over the edge by a quarrel with his girlfriend, a Cape High Court judge said on Tuesday. Judge Deon van Zyl made the remark in a ruling rejecting Van der Vyver’s application for discharge at the end of the state’s case.
Former South African president FW de Klerk on Thursday denied that he had ever condoned apartheid-era murders or other gross violations of human rights. ”I have not only a clear conscience, I am not guilty of any crime whatsoever,” he said. He was responding to newspaper reports that former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok, who faces prosecution, intends to spill the beans on him.
Entertainer Taliep Petersen died only after two previous murder bids planned by his wife, Najwa, went awry, Cape Town’s Wynberg Regional Court heard on Tuesday. The claim emerged during a bail application by Najwa and Abdoer Emjedi, one of her three co-accused, in a courtroom packed with about 150 family and members of the public.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) policy conference, which will play a key role in deciding whether President Thabo Mbeki leads the party for a third term, gets under way in Midrand on Wednesday. About 1 500 delegates are expected at the four-day meeting at Gallagher Estate.
Taliep Petersen’s wife, Najwa, received electric shock therapy before his murder last year and could relapse into psychosis if she remained in custody, the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court heard on Thursday. She also made an apparent suicide attempt some years ago, her psychiatrist said.
Construction of Cape Town’s R2,9-billion Green Point Stadium, being built to host a 2010 Soccer World Cup semifinal, is five weeks ahead of schedule. The city’s 2010 spokesperson, Pieter Cronje, told a media briefing in Cape Town on Thursday that contractors had completed phase one, which was excavation and laying foundations.
Plans for South Africa’s first public naked bicycle ride, to protest against global warming, have fallen foul of the public-service strike. So, it appears, has a jobs-for-youth march that the African National Congress Youth League hoped to hold in central Cape Town on Wednesday.
South Africa could have at least ten more nuclear power stations within two decades if Eskom has its way, according to the utility’s chief executive, Jacob Maroga. He told journalists at a briefing in Cape Town on Thursday that in the face of global warming, nuclear power was the ”next big viable alternative” to coal.
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), which has been championing the Richtersvelders’ land claim for almost a decade, announced on Thursday it would no longer be acting for the community. The news follows last month’s decision by community leaders, acting against the LRC’s advice, to sign a settlement agreement with Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin.