Construction company Murray & Roberts Holdings late on Friday afternoon released the names of the South Africans killed in the Bahrain ferry disaster. Fifty-seven people were killed when a ferry capsized while on a pleasure cruise on Thursday night.
Soccer star Benedict Vilakazi was acquitted on charges of rape and statutory rape in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported. Earlier, the state asked the court to drop the charge of rape but retain the charge of statutory rape.
South Africa struggled to 238-6 on the first day of the third and final Castle Lager Test at the Wanderers on Friday, losing two wickets in each session. Having won the toss, Jacques Kallis, leading the team in the absence of Graeme Smith, who has an injured finger, chose to bat first. Although it was sunny at first, the clouds soon gathered.
Riaz Kadwa, the son of murdered Park Lane Clinic plastic surgeon Mohamed Anwar Kadwa, confessed to Muslim religious leaders to killing his father. The Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court heard in a testimony from Inspector Lappies Labuschagne that Kadwa told them that he had shot his father because his father had killed his mother.
A late try by Stormers flanker Luke Watson denied Western Force their first Super 14 rugby win by the narrowest of margins in Perth on Friday. The South Africans were trailing 25-21 with just four minutes left when Watson crashed over to give them a 26-25 win over the luckless newcomers. The relief for the visitors was as palpable as the disappointment for the Force.
Echoing the message of his last weekly newsletter, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday called on members of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) to serve the people of South Africa ”with no expectation of reward in terms of personal wealth, power, position or prestige”.
Johannesburg residents can anticipate a brighter skyline when repairs to the magnificently illuminated Coca-Cola billboard, which was damaged in a windstorm last year, are complete, said the company on Friday. Khotso Kekana, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola, told the Mail & Guardian Online that certain areas of the billboard are under reconstruction.
The trial of the toppled Liberian president accused of backing a bloody rebellion in his neighbour to the north could take months, according to the chief prosecutor at the special United Nations-backed tribunal that will try Charles Taylor. Prosecutor Desmond de Silva also said security concerns had prompted officials a day before to request that the trial be moved to Europe.
The Supreme Court of Appeal on Friday unanimously overturned a finding of the Pretoria High Court that the Auditor General, Shauket Fakie, was in contempt of court in a matter related to the government’s controversial arms deal. Fakie had been ordered to give CCII Systems certain documents pertaining to the government’s arms deal.
Gay chef Mark Gory was declared the sole heir to his partner’s estate by the Pretoria High Court on Friday after a legal wrangle with the other man’s family. Gory and his partner, Henry Brooks, met in 2003, bought a house in 2004 and lived together as a married couple until Brooks died suddenly, without a will, in April 2005.