Durban

Linda Barron, the former CEO of the Comrades Marathon Association, has been acquitted of culpable homicide and drunken-driving charges in the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate’s Court, the Mercury reported on Friday. A popular Cape Town-based musician was killed after being struck by Barron’s car.

The body of a five-year-old girl who drowned while trying to flee a rapist was found on the banks of a Durban river on Tuesday, police said. The girl and three friends were walking along the banks of the Mbokodweni River on their way to the beach. The four were accosted by a man who, it is believed, wanted to rape them.

The request by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to have documents pertaining to meetings between Jacob Zuma, French arms manufacturer Thint and Schabir Shaik released from Mauritius was on Tuesday postponed to March. Zuma and Thint’s legal teams will oppose the application for the documents to be handed over to the NPA.

International tour operators are threatening to ”pull the plug” on Durban following the gang-rape of a French tourist, the Sunday Tribune newspaper reported. The 26-year-old French national had decided to go for a walk with the Belgian swimming team’s coach on Tuesday night when they were attacked.

Two men appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday in connection with the alleged gang rape of an official of the French swimming team attending the International Paralympic Committee’s Swimming World Championships. Police arrested four people on Tuesday night, but only two were charged on Friday, said police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Phindile Radebe.

The International Paralympic Committee’s World Swimming Championships finished just like they started, with Natalie du Toit winning a gold medal. The South African claimed her sixth gold this week, in the final event, the 5km open-water swim at the Hazelmere Dam.

An official of a European swimming team attending the International Paralympic Committee’s Swimming World Championships in Durban was gang-raped on the city’s beachfront, the Daily News reported on Friday. Sources said the woman had decided to go for a walk with a swimming official from another country on Tuesday night.

Natalie du Toit continued her relentless form at the IPC World Swimming Championships on Wednesday evening, winning her fourth gold medal at the King’s Park Aquatic Centre. Swimming in the women’s S9 400m freestyle, the 22-year-old beat rival Stephanie Dixon for the fourth time this week, missing out on her own world record by just four seconds.

Kaizer Chiefs added to AmaZulu’s relegation woes when they beat them 2-0 in their Premier Soccer League (PSL) encounter at Chatsworth Stadium on Wednesday. The game started on a high note with Chiefs putting pressure on their hosts, but they failed to penetrate a stubborn-looking AmaZulu defence.

Durban’s policing authorities announced on Tuesday that they would be going all out to prevent a repeat of last year’s festive season when three women were raped in the paddling pools in broad daylight. There would also be a ”zero tolerance” towards those consuming too much alcohol.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Tuesday confirmed that it had received a letter from Schabir Shaik’s legal team giving notice that he intends challenging his conviction in the Constitutional Court. Shaik’s lawyer Reeves Parsee said he was fielding ”50 calls a day from the press and I tell them the same thing. I am not going to comment”.

Fraud convict Schabir Shaik has been admitted to hospital, Correctional Services Department officials said on Monday. The offcials refused to divulge his condition but confirmed that he was in hospital. ”We can only acknowledge that he’s been taken to hospital,” said deputy commissioner of communications Manelisi Wolela.

Buyers are slowly lining up for Schabir Shaik’s shares in African Defence Systems, but no decision has been made on who will have first shot at what are often viewed as the crown jewels in the crumbling Nkobi empire. Mo Shaik, the brother of the convicted Durban businessman, said on Monday that ”there are various interested parties”, but he would not disclose who they were.

Fraud convict Schabir Shaik’s move to Empangeni’s Qalakabusha prison was due to his chronic medical condition, the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons announced in Durban on Thursday. Judge Nathan Erasmus said he personally investigated the transfer following continued media speculation over ”preferential treatment”.

The South African National Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations died shortly after having minor surgery, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Wednesday in Durban. Lieutenant General Sipho Binda (54) died in One Military hospital in Pretoria on Tuesday night.

Carlo Scott scored a brace to place Bloemfontein Celtic in fourth place in the Castle Premiership log table when they beat Amazulu 3-1 at the Princess Magogo Stadium on Sunday afternoon. The first goal was scored by Amazulu in the second minute by Benedict Chenene.

There was no sign of businessman Schabir Shaik at Durban’s Westville Prison by 6.30am on Thursday morning, where he was expected to report for a 15-year jail sentence. The media arrived before dawn, on the lookout for the black BMW in which Shaik was expected to arrive. It was their second day spent waiting outside the prison.

Schabir Shaik’s family declared a ”media shutdown” and were on Tuesday refusing to divulge whether lawyers would seek redress in the Constitution Court. Asked on Tuesday morning if the family would take Schabir’s case to the Constitutional Court, Mo said: ”It should become clearer at the end of the day.”

The pilot of a light aircraft was killed when his plane crashed into a house north of Durban on Friday afternoon. Witnesses at Sgodiphola, 40km north of Tongaat on the R614 road to Greytown, said the plane was already in flames before it hit the house in foggy weather. It is believed that the aircraft took off from Virginia airport in Durban.

The Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday granted the state leave to appeal against the voiding of the search-and-seizure raids by the Scorpions on Jacob Zuma’s properties and that of his attorney, Michael Hulley. The application for leave to appeal was not opposed by Zuma’s legal team.