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/ 18 February 2009
Two child witnesses testified for the second time against Cezanne Visser, or ”Advocate Barbie”, in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday.
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/ 4 September 2008
Throughout their trial they posed outside the Pretoria High Court decked out in the latest designer gear, flagrantly provocative and exhibitionistic.
The Pretoria High Court on Tuesday criticised the government for failing to afford a Free State farmer diplomatic protection in Zimbabwe.
The Pretoria High Court has ordered the early release on parole this week of two convicted wife killers and a man who battered to death his mistress’s husband.
A hearing to consider arguments regarding the sentencing of Andrew Jordaan, convicted killer of seven-year-old Sheldean Human, was postponed in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday.
Murder accused Andrew Jordaan on Monday admitted in the Pretoria High Court he smoked dagga and had a large porn collection, but denied he had a sexual interest in little girls, or that he had raped and murdered seven-year-old Sheldean Human. Jordaan took the stand after the state closed its case against him on Monday.
The Pretoria High Court has ruled that a statement to police by the man accused of killing seven-year-old Sheldean Human was admissible as evidence. Acting Judge Chris Eksteen said on Thursday he would only give reasons for his ruling at a later stage. This was after Andrew Jordaan of Pretoria West took the stand on Thursday, claiming he was innocent.
Johannesburg businessman Hugh Glenister will likely hear next week whether his court bid to stop the government from disbanding the Scorpions has succeeded. The Pretoria High Court on Wednesday reserved judgement in his case, with Judge Willie van der Merwe indicating it was likely he would deliver judgement sometime next week.
President Thabo Mbeki abdicated his power in deciding to disband the Scorpions, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa was in court listening as counsel for his and four other opposition parties argued that Mbeki and the Cabinet took their cue from the African National Congress on a decision to dissolve the Scorpions.
An alleged kingpin in the Fidentia asset management scandal, Steven Goodwin, launched an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday to secure his freedom. He asked the court to set aside and declare unconstitutional a request by the Director General of Justice to United States authorities for his provisional arrest.
HIV-positive people will be able to join the South African National Defence Force after it admitted in the Pretoria High Court on Friday that its policies preventing HIV-positive people from employment, foreign deployment and promotion in the armed forces were unconstitutional.
It is impossible to have an HIV-free South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and a defence-force policy discriminating against people with HIV is unconstitutional, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Advocate Gilbert Marcus, SC argued that people should be assessed individually, since an individual who was HIV-positive was not necessarily sick.
The African Christian Democratic Party, Democratic Alliance, Independent Democrats and United Democratic Movement have filed a joint submission in the Pretoria High Court as a friend of the court in support of Hugh Glenister’s bid to stop the disbanding of the Scorpions, the parties said on Thursday.
A union representing South African soldiers is to take the country’s armed forces to court on Thursday over alleged discrimination against HIV-infected personnel, the union said on Wednesday. The South African Security Forces’ Union accuses the South African National Defence Force of discriminating against HIV-infected people.
Lawyers for convicted murderers the Waterkloof Four have filed papers in the Pretoria High Court for an application for leave to appeal, it was reported on Wednesday. The four want to take their murder-conviction appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal after they lost their first appeal case in the Pretoria High Court last week.
The so-called Waterkloof Four will bring an application for leave to appeal a judgement by the Pretoria High Court after the court on Wednesday rejected an appeal to overturn their murder conviction and sentence. The court turned down an appeal by the four to overturn their conviction for the 2001 murder of an unidentified man and the assault of another.
The Pretoria High Court on Wednesday turned down an application by the so-called Waterkloof Four to overturn their murder conviction and sentence. Judge Willie Seriti ruled that the earlier decision by the Pretoria Regional Court to convict Christoff Becker, Frikkie du Preez, Gert van Schalkwyk and Reinach Tiedt of murder and assault was correct.
President Thabo Mbeki has withdrawn his application to oppose a Johannesburg businessman’s bid to stop the disbanding of the Scorpions. In his answering affidavit filed in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday, Mbeki’s said: ”The first respondent hereby withdraws his opposition to the application.”
The so-called Waterkloof Four turn to the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday to ask it to overturn the effective 12-year prison sentence they were given for beating a homeless man to death and assaulting another man. The four will ask the high court to set aside both the guilty verdict of the lower court and the sentence.
A Pretoria magistrate on Friday denied bail to the security guard accused of murdering city dancer Estee van Rensburg. It also emerged on Friday that the guard, Aaron Mashishi, will go on trial in the Pretoria High Court on October 20. The 26-year-old is being charged with murder, robbery with aggravated circumstances and two counts of theft.
Six of the Boeremag treason trialists in C-Max prison will have to put up with warders watching them around the clock, the Pretoria High Court ruled on Thursday. Judge Charl Rabie turned down a bid by six of the 21 accused for an order to allow them to paste paper over windows in their cells.
The Pretoria Regional Court on Thursday turned down a new application by the defence team of Ekurhuleni metro chief Robert McBride to force the state to hand over all statements made by three state witnesses, even those not relating to his drunken-driving case.
A farmworker who escaped the gallows for murder 23 years ago faces a possible life sentence after pleading guilty in the Pretoria High Court to another charge of murder. Acting Judge Peter Mabuse convicted Amos Zulu (57), of Bapsfontein, on Tuesday of murdering his employer, Johanna Maria Erasmus (76), in February last year.
President Thabo Mbeki is blatantly violating human rights, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) claimed in a document handed to Amnesty International on Friday. The party’s chief whip, Koos van der Merwe, handed a written complaint against Mbeki to a representative of Amnesty International in Pretoria.
A Hillbrow police captain on Friday flatly denied that he had at any stage tortured or coached Andrew Jordaan to tell police where the body of seven-year-old Sheldean Human could be found. Captain Ignatius van Aardt testified in a trial within a trial in the Pretoria High Court to determine the admissibility of a confession and pointing-out by Jordaan.
First National Bank’s (FNB) ”million-a-month account” competition is an illegal lottery, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruled on Friday. The SCA dismissed the bank’s appeal against a Pretoria High Court declaratory order, according to which the bank’s competition was a lottery prohibited by the Lotteries Act.
The body of seven-year-old Sheldean Human was found as a direct result of a statement to top cop Director Piet Byleveld, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Byleveld questioned murder accused Andrew Jordaan (25) after being asked to help with the investigation into the girl’s disappearance.
The Pretoria High Court has issued an interim interdict to restrain the government from relocating people from the former Pomfret military base in the North West. The order also brings a temporary halt to the demolishing of property in the town. Judge Brian Southwood granted an urgent court order to the 6 000-strong Pomfret community.
An eight-year-old girl allegedly molested by Andrew Jordaan, the man accused of murdering seven-year-old Sheldean Human, said he threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the abuse. The girl on Wednesday testified behind closed doors through an intermediary — after the court heard that evidence in an open court could further harm her emotionally.
An eight-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually abused for months by Andrew Jordaan, the man accused of murdering and raping Sheldean Human, on Wednesday took the stand behind closed doors. Pretoria High Court Judge Chris Eksteen ordered that the girl must testify through an intermediary.
A neighbour of murdered seven-year-old Sheldean Human on Tuesday told the Pretoria High Court that she had seen the girl in the company of her alleged killer, Andrew Jordaan, shortly before her disappearance. Maria de Beer said Sheldean was playing with Jordaan on the pavement outside when she saw them at about 6pm on February 18 2007.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has come out in support of a Johannesburg businessman’s attempt to seek an interdict from the Pretoria High Court to stop the disbanding of the Scorpions crime-fighting unit. ”Just call me a concerned citizen,” said businessman Hugh Glenister. ”I believe our constitutional rights are being violated.”