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/ 7 September 2006
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Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Herbert Msimang reserved judgement until September 20 in the state’s application for a postponement of the corruption trial of Jacob Zuma and his co-accused Thint. Meanwhile, the state should be allowed to use documents seized from Zuma and his attorney in raids by the Scorpions last year, its legal team argued on Thursday.
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/ 7 September 2006
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Legal sparring continued in Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial on Wednesday, with his supporters thinking their side was winning. ”It is clear to anyone inside that court that the ship is sinking,” Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the crowd outside the court.
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/ 6 September 2006
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Jacob Zuma’s lawyer on Wednesday rejected the state’s invitation to allow the Pietermaritzburg High Court to decide whether documents taken in search-and-seizure raids were admissible as evidence. Advocate Kemp J Kemp told Judge Herbert Msimang that he would not be ”accepting my learned friend’s offer”.
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/ 6 September 2006
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African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma condemned on Tuesday the murder of the Gauteng chairperson of the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust. Zobaphi Sithole was shot in Meadowlands, Soweto on Monday and died in hospital on Tuesday.
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/ 5 September 2006
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>The case against former deputy president Jacob Zuma should be struck from the roll and charges brought against him only when the state has its "house in order", his advocate told the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday. Kemp J Kemp, counsel for Zuma, accused the state of not complying with its constitutional obligation to provide a final indictment.
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/ 5 September 2006
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The state on Tuesday invited Jacob Zuma’s legal team to submit evidence taken in controversial search-and-seizure raids to be adjudicated by the Pietermaritzburg High Court, saying this would speed up the corruption trial. The state said on the status of the various search-and-seizure raids were the main reason for the need for a postponement.
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/ 5 September 2006
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>It was not clear why the state wanted to have Jacob Zuma’s trial postponed, African National Congress KwaZulu-Natal deputy chairperson Zweli Mkhize told Zuma’s supporters outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday. Mkhize said there had been argument between Judge Herbert Msimang and state prosecutor Wim Trengove.
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/ 5 September 2006
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The corruption trial of former deputy president Jacob Zuma and two co-accused French companies began in the Pietermaritzburg High Court shortly after 10am on Tuesday. Zuma sat in the dock wearing a dark suit. He smiled and put his hands together in greeting to his supporters.
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/ 5 September 2006
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A few hundred supporters of Jacob Zuma marched up and down Pietermaritzburg’s Church Street on Tuesday ahead of the former deputy president’s court appearance. ”Fight conspiracy and demand justice,” read one of the banners the protesters carried.
A Durban hijacker who shot dead a Pietermaritzburg teacher and wounded his girlfriend was sentenced to life plus 45 years in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday. Mlandeli Madlala (22) was given a life sentence for the February 2005 murder of Irshad Jogiat, a teacher who was to obtain a law degree at the end of that year.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday ordered two camps within the National Democratic Convention (Nadeco) party to hold an inaugural federal congress to choose the party’s office bearers. Legal representatives of the Assan Mbatha and Ziba Jiyane camps said they hoped the congress will resolve disputes between the camps.
A 50-year-old Pietermaritzburg pastor was on Tuesday sentenced to life in prison by the city’s high court for raping a nine-year-old girl. ”The rape has gained him very little, but killed the spirit of three women — the victim, her mother and his own wife,” acting Judge Aboobaker Mohamed said during sentencing.
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Jacob Zuma will have to wait for more than a month for the corruption trial he believes will clear his name after it was adjourned to September 5 by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday. In less than two hours judge Herbert Msimang adjourned the trial to allow the defence and the state time to prepare replies and heads of argument to the state’s application for a postponement.
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Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial was adjourned until September 5 after a short session at the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday. Judge Herbert Msimang did not accept state prosecutor Wim Trengove’s assertion that it should be postponed till September 7 because colleague Anton Steynberg would be overseas at a conference.
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial began shortly after 10am in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday with Judge Herbert Msimang at the helm. Zuma had smiled and nodded his head when asked how he was feeling as he entered court A.
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KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele joined African National
Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe and KwaZulu-Natal finance minister Zweli Mkhize in the front row of the Pietermaritzburg
High Court ahead of Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial on Monday.
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KwaZulu-Natal judge president Vuka Tshabalala was on Monday morning still not providing the name of the man who will preside over African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma’s corruption case. ”You don’t have long to go before he [the judge] enters the court,” Tshabalala said on Monday, barely an hour before Zuma’s case begins in Pietermaritzburg.
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Jacob Zuma on Sunday spoke out against what he described as infighting within the ruling African National Congress. ”Fighting for positions is wrong and should not be influenced by sources within the media,” he told the South African Communist Party’s (SACP) anniversary rally in Pietermaritzburg.
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Pietermaritzburg hotels on Sunday reported high occupancy rates, considered ”unusual” for this time of year. Many of the hotels were filled with police officers, journalists and Zuma supporters ahead of his upcoming corruption trial on Monday. Pietermaritzburg tourism director Melanie Veness said: ”There is very little [accommodation] available. It’s very unusual for this time of year.”
Rough justice meted out to suspected Lesotho cattle rustlers — shooting dead one and cutting off the ears and a hand of each of two others — by KwaZulu-Natal stock owners was visited by 16-year jail sentences by the Pietermaritzburg High Court Friday. The stock owners were sentenced for murder, attempted murder and robbery.
KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele has expressed his best wishes to King Goodwill Zwelithini, who celebrates his 58th birthday on Thursday. The premier said: ”Our government and the people of our province will continue to draw inspiration and courage from his wise leadership.”
Six months after being convicted of the theft of a lion cub, a Cato Ridge man was charged in Pietermaritzburg on Monday with stealing an endangered 75-year-old giant Seychelles tortoise from the same complainant, the Natal Lion Park Zoo. Two sangomas allegedly bought the tortoise — presumably to use as muti.
There has been a break-in at the African Christian Democratic Party’s (ACDP) offices in the Kwazulu-Natal legislature, party spokesperson Cedric Sokhutu said on Monday. ”Paperwork files have been removed from MPL Joanne Down’s office and there is a possibility that the computer hard drive has been interrogated,” he said.
Oleg Kharitonov of Russia has won the 81st Comrades Marathon ”up run” from Durban to Pietermaritzburg on Friday. The 38-year-old captured his first Comrades Marathon in a time of five hours, 35 minutes, 16 seconds — nearly 10 minutes outside the record time of 5:25,33 set by Vladimir Kotov in 2000.
A Pietermaritzburg man who is now dead offered R10 000 for the life of a police officer who bore a grudge against him, the high court in the KwaZulu-Natal capital heard on Monday. The allegation appeared during the first day of the trial of Nkosinathi Mbhele (27), who has pleaded not guilty to murdering Inspector Noel Landsberg.
Jomo Cosmos added to the woes of Tembisa Classic when they beat them 2-1 in a Castle Premier League soccer match clash played at the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday night. The visitors led 1-0 at the interval. Cosmos’ goals were scored by Christopher Katongo and Bhamuza Sono while Classic benefited from an own goal by Tapelo Tshilo.
Pietermaritzburg is heading in the same direction as Cape Town with the possibility of ongoing power failures — only this time it is not Eskom to blame, but the city’s own internal system, the Witness website reported on Monday. The KwaZulu-Natal provincial capital has an electricity department ”with hardly any electricians”.
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/ 26 February 2006
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African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma received a hero’s welcome while campaigning for the upcoming local government election on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg on Saturday. He told community members to vote for the ANC, saying it is the only party that can give them a better life.
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/ 26 January 2006
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Putting a former Travelgate MP on the ANC’s proportional representation list for the Ugu District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal shows the party is corrupt, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Ruth Ntshulana-Bhengu resigned from Parliament following her conviction in the Travelgate scandal.
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/ 17 January 2006
The South African canoeing community is mourning the death of pioneering black paddler Robert Lembethe, who passed away at the weekend after a short illness. Lembethe (56) died a week before the Hansa Powerade Dusi marathon, the race that attracted him to the sport in the early Eighties.
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/ 8 December 2005
Bush Bucks suffered yet another Premier Soccer League defeat when they lost 2-1 to a 10-man Thembisa Classic in a closely contested match at the Harry Gwala Stadium in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday night. The home team came back strongly in the second stanza and went ahead in the 47th minute when Collen Zimba finished neatly for a deserved lead.
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/ 4 November 2005
Twenty of 40 KwaZulu-Natal civil servants charged with defrauding the social-grant system made their first court appearances at the Durban Commercial Court this week. The 40, mostly from Durban, were arrested in a nationwide campaign that clamped down on thousands of civil servants illegally collecting social grants.