A 32-year-old man was arrested on Monday morning in connection with the kidnapping and murder of Johannesburg student Leigh Matthews. The man was a former student in Matthews’ class at the Bond University and had apparently fallen in love with her. Acting National Police Commissioner Hamilton Hlela said the man was cooperating with detectives and was expected to appear in court on Wednesday.
Two top officials of a Kenyan jail where five inmates were allegedly beaten to death last week were suspended on Monday when it emerged that another nine prisoners from the same jail had died in hospital over the past week. National Prisons Commissioner Abraham Kamakil announced he had suspended Silas M’tambu, the officer in charge of Meru prison in eastern Kenya, and his deputy, Benedict Mutunga, on compulsory leave to allow ”further investigations”.
An apparently mentally deranged man attacked and killed a passer-by on a French street with a knife then tried to suck the victim’s blood, police said on Monday. The 23 year-old attacker struck his victim, another man, on the head and was about to suck the blood from his wounds when a passer-by ripped a receiver from a nearby telephone booth and hit him.
A private spaceship has won the -million Ansari X Prize after making a second successful flight into space in a week. SpaceShipOne reached 368 000 feet, according to X Prize officials, well beyond the space threshold of 328 000 feet. The prize was offered for the first successful manned private space flight.
One of the Boeremag treason trial accused had to be rushed to a district surgeon after apparently suffering a nervous breakdown in the Pretoria High Court on Monday. Kobus Pretorius – whose two brothers and father are also on trial on charges including treason, terrorism and murder – suddenly jumped up and ran to the holding cells shortly after his advocate raised concerns about his client’s mental state.
Around 20 Commonwealth election observers are in Cameroon to monitor next week’s presidential election, the head of the delegation told reporters in Yaounde on Monday. ”We are here at the invitation of the government of Cameroon to observe the presidential election of 11 October,” said former Canadian prime minister Joe Clark, head of the observer team.
A South African soldier has been arrested in Burundi in connection with the murder of a young woman, the Defence Ministry said in Pretoria on Monday. Sergeant Philippus Jacobus Venter, 32 – a VIP protector – was arrested on Friday and was being detained at the SANDF base in Bujumbura after local law-enforcement agencies laid a charge of murder.
After touching a fresh all time high during Monday morning’s session, the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa remained strong, but off its highs by midday. Dealers said most of the major indices were strong, with the exception of gold and resources, which were both in the red. Several companies’ share prices reached all time or long term highs.
Janet Leigh, the wholesome beauty whose shocking murder in the classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho was credited with making generations of film fans think twice about stepping into a motel room shower, has died at her Beverly Hills home, her daughter’s publicist confirmed on Monday. She was 77.
It must have seemed like a terrific stroke of luck: Dick Cheney, the man who for the past five years had been the chief executive of Halliburton, became the vice-president in 2000. The oil services and engineering company was given a direct line to the White House. But Halliburton’s relationship with the Bush administration is beginning to prove more problematic than it is worth.