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/ 31 October 2007
According to research, 70% of young children who have a parent in jail develop emotional problems, the Wynberg Regional Court heard from a psychiatrist on Wednesday. Rosa Bredenkamp was testifying before Western Cape Regional Court president Robert Henney in support of Najwa Petersen’s second bail application.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Tuesday it would approach the Cape High Court on Wednesday for an interdict to stop the government from implementing an abalone fishing ban that would impact on poor fishing communities.
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/ 23 October 2007
The trial of actuary Fred van der Vyver, accused of murdering his student girlfriend Inge Lotz, appears to be drawing to a close. Prosecutor Carine Theunissen told the Cape High Court on Tuesday she would finish her cross-examination of Van der Vyver on Wednesday morning.
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/ 22 October 2007
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver and his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, were deeply in love at the time she died, the young man told the Cape High Court on Monday. On the morning of her death on March 16 2005, they parted with hugs and kisses as he left to attend a class at the University of Stellenbosch, he said. ”I was very much in love with her,” he said.
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/ 22 October 2007
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver told the Cape High Court on Monday that he never used the ornamental hammer that the state says could have been a murder weapon. Van der Vyver, accused of bludgeoning his student girlfriend Inge Lotz to death in her Stellenbosch flat in 2005, was starting his second day of cross-examination.
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/ 18 October 2007
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver was questioned closely on Thursday on how he came to know that his student girlfriend Inge Lotz had been stabbed. Van der Vyver (25) was under cross-examination in the Cape High Court after his defence team was given permission to reopen its case to present his testimony.
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/ 17 October 2007
At the end of an emotional day of testimony, murder accused Fred van der Vyver on Wednesday formally denied that he killed his student girlfriend Inge Lotz. Van der Vyver was in the witness box for the second day, following a successful application by his defence team to reopen its case to hear his testimony.
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/ 16 October 2007
Lawyers acting for Chris Hani’s killers said they would proceed with an application to the high court, asking it to compel President Thabo Mbeki to make a decision on their application for a presidential pardon. Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis unsuccessfully sought amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1999 for the 1993 assassination of Hani.
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/ 15 October 2007
The man who sold Najwa Petersen’s family an allegedly encrypted police interview tape is a repeat fraud offender, it emerged on Monday in the Wynberg Regional Court. The tape, which the family believed would help prove her innocence, turned out to be blank, the court heard.
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/ 11 October 2007
Najwa Petersen says she was framed for the murder of her husband, internationally renowned entertainer Taliep Petersen. She made the claim in an affidavit handed in to Cape Town’s Wynberg Regional Court on Thursday as part of her second bail application, launched on the basis of what her legal team says are ”at least” ten new factors.
A Cape High Court judge on Wednesday reserved his ruling on a forfeiture application against former LeisureNet joint chief executives Peter Gardener and Rod Mitchell. The two men have already paid over R29,5-million to liquidators, the state says there is a shortfall of at least half a million rands each.
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver’s legal team has told the Cape High Court it wants him to testify in his own defence. The surprise move came on Tuesday afternoon after the state had already delivered its closing arguments, and Van der Vyver’s advocate Dup de Bruyn had begun his.
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver acted extremely strangely after the death of his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. The submission came from prosecutor Carien Theunissen in closing argument in Van der Vyver’s trial. He is alleged to have bludgeoned her to death in her Stellenbosch flat on March 16 2005.
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/ 26 September 2007
The Cape High Court has given residents of Cape Town’s Joe Slovo informal settlement, who are opposing eviction, a week to appoint lawyers to represent them. Over a thousand residents packed the street outside the court on Wednesday morning under the watchful eye of police officers.
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/ 20 September 2007
Najwa Petersen, widow of slain musician Taliep Petersen, is to launch a fresh bail application next month based on ”new facts”, the Wynberg Regional Court heard on Thursday. She and three men whom she allegedly hired to murder her husband are to go on trial in the Cape High Court on a date still to be fixed.
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/ 19 September 2007
The legality of a FirstRand Bank offshore tax scheme came under scrutiny in the Cape High Court on Wednesday when the bank sought an urgent interdict to stop noseweek magazine from publishing the names of clients involved in it. Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso will give her ruling on Thursday morning.
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/ 19 September 2007
Judge Jeanette Traverso, hearing FirstRand’s urgent application for an interdict against the satirical magazine <i>NoseWeek</i> in the Cape High Court, said on Wednesday that there seemed to be little doubt that the tax-avoidance scheme at the heart of the case "is suspect".
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/ 14 September 2007
The Independent Democrats (ID) came out winners on Friday in a last-minute flurry of applications to the Cape High Court by ID defectors to retain their seats. The party said bids by four former ID local councillors in the Western Cape to keep their seats were rejected by the court with costs. Two of the four were members of the Cape Town city council.
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/ 13 September 2007
The Cape High Court-appointed curators of the Fidentia Group have found money stolen from investors who entrusted their savings to companies in the organisation. Co-curator George Papadakis said: ”We know where every cent is and who has got it. Some have offered to repay; others are choosing to fight us.”
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/ 5 September 2007
The Pan African Congress (PAC) on Wednesday became the first casualty of the floor-crossing season as its former deputy president launched a new party. Themba Godi announced the launch of the African People’s Convention (APC) at a hotel near Kempton Park. APC spokesperson Mafemane Maringa said the party had been joined by 40 councillors.
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/ 5 September 2007
The Cape High Court on Wednesday confirmed an earlier ruling to refuse bail for Najwa Petersen, who is charged with the murder of her celebrity husband, Taliep. Her appeal was launched before acting Judge John Whitehead.
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/ 5 September 2007
Reformed Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie was on Wednesday found not guilty of the revenge murder of taxi driver Mogamat Ryklief. Staggie appeared in the Cape High Court before Judge Nathan Erasmus, who labelled the only state witness, Donavan Richards, as a ”good liar who manipulated words to suit himself”.
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/ 4 September 2007
The embattled Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has suffered a further blow with the defection of its deputy president Themba Godi and two MPLs to the newly formed African People’s Convention (APC). Godi’s move to the APC was announced by National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete at the start of proceedings on Tuesday.
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/ 4 September 2007
Former Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie has decided not to testify in his murder trial in the Cape High Court. His advocate, Koos Louw, closed his client’s case on Tuesday morning without calling any witnesses. Staggie is charged with the August 1996 killing of taxi driver Mogamat Ryklief, allegedly in revenge for the slaying three days earlier of Staggie’s twin brother.
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/ 1 September 2007
A number of local councillors and one member of a provincial legislature have crossed over to the Democratic Alliance (DA) since the floor-crossing window opened at midnight, DA federal chairperson James Selfe said on Saturday. ”There is a steady trickle of people to us, but it’s a trickle, not a flood, and that’s as we anticipated it,” he said.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday reserved judgement in Najwa Petersen’s appeal against a magistrate’s refusal to grant her bail. Petersen, who was not in court, is appealing last month’s decision by Wynberg regional magistrate Robert Henney. She and three alleged hired hit men are charged with the murder of her husband, entertainer Taliep Petersen, in December last year.
The Independent Democrats (ID) were riding high on the eve of the floor-crossing window on Friday after Cape High Court judges rejected bids by four would-be deserters to hang on to their seats until midnight. Judge Dennis Davis turned down an application by former ID general secretary Avril Harding to have his summary expulsion from the party reversed.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday criticised what he called ”unseemly political horse-trading” ahead of the floor-crossing window, and said it resembled transfer season in the English Premiership. Dennis Davis made the remarks before rejecting an application by the former general secretary of the Independent Democrats to overturn his expulsion from the party.
The Independent Democrats (ID) won another round in the floor-crossing battle on Thursday when the Cape High Court refused to overturn the expulsion from the party of Cape Town city councillor Achmat Williams. Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso also rejected Williams’s bid to delay his appeal hearing against the expulsion.