The Little Falls Christian Centre, west of Johannesburg, was awash with tears at Thursday’s memorial for the four police officers killed in a shootout with alleged robbers in Jeppestown. Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Susan Shabangu broke down as she took the podium.
Eleven of 16 people arrested for Sunday’s Jeppestown siege were remanded until July 27 by the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. Sunday’s shootout in Johannesburg left 12 people dead, four of them police officers. On Tuesday at least 10 police officers with rifles and handguns blocked the doors to the court as the first nine men laboured up the steps from the holding cells.
The Gauteng Rapid Rail team on Thursday unveiled a complex plan of street closures, demolitions and expropriations — set to begin mid-May — for the construction of the new Gautrain link between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Digging will start "within weeks" for the first preparations, said project leader Jack van der Merwe.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions has welcomed Jacob Zuma’s apology for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman. It said it agreed with Judge Willem van der Merwe that ”it is totally unacceptable that a man should have unprotected sex with a person other than his regular partner and definitely not with a person who, to his knowledge, is HIV-positive”.
All eyes will be on Jacob Zuma’s rape trial judgement in Johannesburg High Court 4E on Monday. If he is not guilty, he will collect his R20 000 bail money and walk out of the court a free man. If he is found guilty, the sentencing and appeal process will begin.
South Africa’s party list electoral system is stifling dissent and ensuring accountability to parties, rather than citizens, according to a submission contained in the working draft of South Africa’s Country Self Assessment Report. The report is designed to help countries in Africa improve their governance.
The belief that the rape charge against Jacob Zuma is part of a political conspiracy cannot be dismissed, his lawyer Kemp J Kemp told the Johannesburg High Court on Friday. ”It is not something that one can just dismiss out of hand,” said Kemp, summarising why he thinks Zuma is not guilty.
The state pulled out all the stops on Wednesday to prove that Jacob Zuma raped an HIV-positive woman, saying his version of events was ”laughable” and ”fanciful”. Prosecutor Charin de Beer described Zuma’s details of November 2 last year as ”recent fabrication” to enhance his claim of consensual sex.
Former deputy president Jacob Zuma will know ”as soon as possible” whether he will be convicted of rape, Johannesburg High Court Judge Willem van der Merwe said on Tuesday. ”Yes, let me say that I want to do it as soon as possible for obvious reasons,” said Van der Merwe.
Emotional transference could lead a victim of previous rape to perceive consensual sex as rape afterwards, a forensic psychologist told Jacob Zuma’s rape trial on Tuesday. Testifying for Zuma, Louise Olivier also questioned whether his rape accuser froze during the alleged rape at his Johannesburg home.