Advocate Cezanne Visser will not take the stand in her sex-crimes trial, the Pretoria High Court heard on Monday. The state finally closed its case against Visser more than a year after the trial started. Her trial was postponed to August 15 for final argument. It is expected that judgement will take several days to complete.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was asked on Monday to investigate the disappearance from South Africa of Pakistani national Khalid Mahmood Rashid. Rashid’s lawyer, Zehir Omar, has spoken with and subsequently sent a fax to the ICC office of prosecutors in The Hague asking it to investigate the ”enforced disappearance” of Rashid.
Advocate Cezanne Visser, also known as Advocate Barbie, was forced to call her lover, Advocate Dirk Prinsloo, her ”sex god”, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Prinsloo was a narcissist and a control freak, and became abusive when he did not get his way, his former personal assistant told the court.
The Department of Labour on Wednesday said it was too early to say if Sasol would be charged with culpable homicide for the September 2004 blast at its Secunda plant. The report on the explosion was with Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana and he still had to study it, his spokesperson Mokgadi Pela said.
More arrests in the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) hoax e-mail saga are expected, police said on Monday. Speaking outside the specialised Commercial Crime Court in Pretoria where Muziwendoda Kunene appeared on a charge of fraud relating to the e-mails, Captain Dennis Adriao said more arrests are expected.
The minister of home affairs will hear on Monday whether she will have to give reasons why her department should not be compelled to supply information about the deportation of Pakistani national Khalid Mahmood Rashid. This follows an application by Rashid’s lawyer, Zehir Omar.
Pretoria police said on Wednesday it is too early to draw conclusions about the discovery of a number of bodies in Centurion, south of the city, as investigations are still underway. Van Wyk said the police will not disclose the number of bodies recently found.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) marched in Pretoria on Tuesday, saying it could not support the ”lies” the government was telling the United Nations about its treatment programme. ”We as the TAC cannot support the lies that government is telling the UN. The first lie is that we have the biggest [treatment] programme in the world,” said TAC chairperson Zackie Achmat.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Monday would not comment on possible arrests in the case surrounding National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said he could not comment on this or anything else contained in a Mail & Guardian report on Friday.
The Pretoria High Court on Friday turned down an application by 15 refugees to set aside a refusal by the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority not to register them as security guards. Their registration was earlier refused on the grounds that they were neither South African citizens nor permanent residents.
The South African National Taxi Council demands the scrapping of the National Land Transport Act and the government’s taxi-recapitalisation programme, the organisation’s president said on Friday. ”If the Act still exist in its current form, you will suffer for it,” AJ Mthembu told protesters at the Union Buildings.
The possibility of a nationwide taxi strike cannot be ruled out should the Department of Transport fail to comply with taxi owners’ demands over operating permits, a spokesperson said on Friday. South African National Taxi Council members marched to the Union Buildings to hand over a memorandum to the minister of transport.
While the public service has done much in forming legislative and regulatory frameworks and policies, it needs to put this into practice, the Public Service Commission said on Thursday. Releasing the fifth annual state of the public service report, Professor Stan Sangweni said it focused on the capacity of the public service to deliver on its programmes.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana was considering resuming public wage negotiations in the troubled security sector, provided no harm came to officials, the Department of Labour said on Thursday. ”I am tempted to allow my officials to go ahead with the hearings in line with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act,” Mdladlana said from Cape Town.
Security company Omega International Associates has denied its employees arrested in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were involved in a coup plot. The Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that 26 people were arrested in the DRC on Friday on allegations of ”destabilisation of government institutions”.
Mamelodi police and the principal at Gatang Secondary School addressed pupils on Wednesday after violence erupted in the area following a schoolgirl’s rape on Monday. ”Mamelodi police leadership and the principal are talking to pupils about what happened yesterday [Tuesday],” said police spokesperson Constable Brenda Kgafela.
The government has done what it can for a group of protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape, and urged them to go back home. ”We are not resisting to pay the claims; we are willing to, especially when it comes to the elderly,” Boas Seruwe, acting Unemployment Insurance Fund commissioner, said on Tuesday.
The former editor of the Afrikaans pornographic magazine Loslyf must pay celebrity Amor Vittone R180 000 in damages, the Pretoria High Court ordered on Tuesday. This followed publication of ”manipulated” pictures that depicted Vittone in a very compromising position.
A sex-crimes trial against a Pretoria advocate was postponed in the city’s high court on Tuesday for two weeks due to her ill health. Proceedings were to have continued for the trial against Cezanne Visser in connection with alleged sexual offences, but she was found not to be in an ideal psychological or physical state to consult with lawyers.
A group of about 800 protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape who were evicted from the Tshwane city hall on Monday were being cared for by residents on Tuesday. ”The group has been separated into two smaller groups of about 300 and 500 each and they are staying in open halls in blocks of flats in the Pretoria CBD,” said Willie Fuledi, spokesperson for the Ex-Mineworkers’ Union of SA.
A mechanism to force security-sector groups into negotiating is needed to resolve the current labour dispute, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said on Monday. ”People are constantly calling on the minister to intervene in criminal activities. What do they mean when they say intervene?” Mdladlana said in Pretoria.
The final report of the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry into the mandate and location of the Scorpions was handed to President Thabo Mbeki on Monday. Mbeki appointed the commission, headed by Judge Sisi Khampepe, last year to probe the rationale for establishing the Scorpions and placing it under the control of the National Prosecuting Authority.
In another twist in the Pretoria High Court drama of seven alleged Pakistani illegal immigrants, Judge Dion Basson recused himself on Thursday from presiding in the case. The men were arrested outside the court after attending another court case about Khalid Mahmood Rashid, who disappeared last year when he was deported to Pakistan.
The bail of former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni was extended by the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday, pending a petition to the Supreme Court of Appeal to appeal against his four-year jail sentence. His R10Â 000 bail was, however, increased to R30Â 000. He was given until the end of the day to pay the additional bail.
Teachers may search anyone on school property without a search warrant, the Department of Education said in Pretoria on Monday at a meeting following a month of violence in schools that has resulted in the deaths of at least two pupils and numerous injuries through stabbings and gun violence.
One of the accused in the Boeremag treason trial on Monday blamed police for the disappearance of two of his co-accused as police announced new and stringent security measures at the resumption of the trial. Herman van Rooyen and Rudi Gouws disappeared from court during a lunch break two weeks ago.
The case against two men for the rape and murder of three Mamelodi girls was postponed in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday. The two men were arrested in early May in connection with the discovery of the half-naked bodies of three high-school pupils, dumped behind a shopping complex in Mamelodi.
The South African Police Service will have to establish if Dirk Prinsloo — accused of sex crimes — is in the Russian Federation as suspected before Interpol can help in the search, police said on Wednesday. Prinsloo allegedly jumped bail and stayed on in Russia instead of returning for his trial in the Pretoria High Court.
The case against an IT salesman involved in an alleged hoax e-mail conspiracy within the African National Congress was postponed in the Pretoria Regional Court on Wednesday. The case against Muziwendoda Sikhona Kunene was postponed to June 26 to allow Kunene to arrange a new defence team.
The contentious issue of floor-crossing will be raised in Parliament next week, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon promised on Tuesday. Speaking at the Africa Dialogue lecture series at the University of Pretoria, Leon said the practice has become almost universally detested by voters.
A warrant for the arrest of Pretoria advocate Dirk Prinsloo was issued on Tuesday after he failed to turn up for his trial in the high court on charges ranging from soliciting children to rape and fraud. Judge Mahomed Ismail issued a warrant for Prinsloo’s arrest after hearing that Prinsloo had phoned his legal representatives to tell them ”he was not returning from Russia”.
A Mozambican national spent more than a year awaiting trial for rape and attempted murder in South Africa, while forensic evidence clearing him had been available four months after his arrest. Charges of rape and attempted murder were withdrawn against Lui Emmanuel Sipoge in the Pretoria Regional Court on Tuesday.