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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was sentenced to an effective 15-year jail term for fraud and corruption in the city’s high court on Wednesday. Judge Hillary Squires likened corruption to a ”cancer eating away at the fabric of corporate probity” and said Shaik had ”lost his moral compass”.
”When Sandi Majali wrote cheques after getting a multimillion-rand advance from the state oil company, two of the first recipients were relatives of Cabinet ministers.” Thus starts the Mail & Guardian‘s follow-up to its ”Oilgate” exposé, which a Johannesburg High Court interdict kept out of print two weeks ago. On Tuesday, the court lifted the interdict.
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Schabir Shaik left the Durban High Court on Thursday following his conviction on two counts of corruption and one of fraud relating to alleged irregular financial dealings with Deputy President Jacob Zuma. A spokesperson for Zuma said the deputy president will study the judgement before commenting.
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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was convicted in the Durban High Court on Thursday on two counts of corruption and one of fraud relating to alleged irregular financial dealings with Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
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Judge Hillary Squires questioned on Wednesday the true nature of fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik’s friendship with Deputy President Jacob Zuma. ”Genuine friendship would not have resorted to such blatant advertising,” the judge said during his second day of judgement.
Media watchdogs have reacted with shock to the gagging order placed on the Mail & Guardian newspaper by the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday night. The Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Media Monitoring Project, the Democratic Alliance and the South African National Editors’ Forum have all responded critically.
Thousands of people packed St Peter’s Square on Friday as Pope John Paul II’s health deteriorated. They prayed and gazed up at his third-floor window in a quiet vigil repeated in churches around the world. In South Africa, Catholics were praying for a peaceful end for the pope and churches were preparing special masses.
Swaziland closing its borders with South Africa? Michael Jackson seeking asylum in Zimbabwe? Jean-Bertrand Aristide appointed Minister of the African Diaspora in the South African Cabinet? It’s that time of the year when gasps of disbelief are quickly replaced by a collective slapping of the forehead — April Fool’s Day.
Former Labour Party leader and later African National Congress MP Reverend Allan Hendrickse died suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, his family confirmed. Hendrickse’s son, Peter, also an ANC MP, said his father suffered a fatal heart attack at the Port Elizabeth airport at about 2pm on Wednesday.
The first constitutional challenge to new health laws left dispensing doctors and the Department of Health each notching up a partial victory on Friday. The Constitutional Court said regulations that force doctors to get licences to dispense drugs are not unconstitutional, but sections that tried to limit the number of pharmacies in an area were declared ultra vires and invalid.