The police investigation into the rapes of three women and the murders of two of the women and a baby was incomplete, the Temba Circuit High Court heard on Thursday. Defence Advocate Janus Roothman argued that the police’s investigation had been incomplete and this had led to discrepancies.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=67238">Guilty plea in high-profile murder case</a>
Ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is not a refugee in South Africa, but a free person and a guest of the government, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She told reporters in Pretoria that Aristide will be allowed to make political speeches while in the country.
Wholesale trade for 2003 was 17% higher than previously reported, motor trade 17% higher, and retail trade 20% higher, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday. This represents a difference of about R70-billion on wholesale trade, R47-billion on retail trade and R21-billion on motor trade.
Eugene Terre’Blanche’s release from prison next Friday would kick-start the revival of the right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) he founded 31 years ago, his lawyer said on Wednesday. The organisation was put on ice while Terre’Blanche served more than half of an effective five-year jail term for assaulting security guard Paul Motshabi in 1996 — leaving him disabled.
The deadline for doctors to obtain dispensing licences was extended by the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday. Doctors, who were supposed to have obtained the licence by Tuesday, now have until July 2 to do so. Acting Judge Johann Kruger said it would not be in the interests of justice to allow the regulations to come into force before he had decided on their constitutionality.
A South African diplomat kidnapped in Malaysia on May 23 and later released was apparently mistaken by his abductors for a foreign tourist, South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Department said on Tuesday. Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said Nicky Scholtz, deputy high commissioner in Malaysia, was kidnapped while walking along Jalan Ampang, between the KLCC Suria and the Hotel Nikko in Kuala Lumpur.
William Kekana (19) pleaded guilty in the Temba Circuit High Court on Tuesday to 10 counts, including four charges of kidnapping, attempted murder and the rape of a 17-year-old girl. But he denied the killing of one-year-old Kayla Rawstone, the murder and rape of her mother or the murder of Kayla’s grandmother.
‘Developments’ in Kekana trial
Burundi’s political leaders failed to agree on a timetable for holding elections following four days of talks in Pretoria, setting the stage for a showdown on the thorny issue at a weekend summit, an official said on Tuesday. Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye and leaders of former rebel groups have been meeting since Saturday.
Key political players in the Burundi peace process, including President Domitien Ndayizeye, entered a fourth day of talks in Pretoria on Tuesday to try to agree on an election timetable. South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who is the chief mediator in the negotiations, continued consultations that started on Saturday after the Burundi government announced that it had plans to delay elections by a year.
The state may be able to speed up a 19-year-old’s High Court trial for the murder of a baby girl, the rape and murder of her mother, the murder of her grandmother and the rape of a teenager, a state advocate said on Tuesday. On Monday, a belligerent William Kekana swore at cameramen and media before the trial began.
Regulations obliging doctors to acquire special licences to dispense medicine were likened in the Pretoria High Court on Monday to apartheid-era laws barring black people from certain areas and certain jobs. As those laws did to blacks, the regulations infringed on doctors’ right to dignity, freedom of movement and of practising their professions freely, Hans Fabricius, SC, argued on behalf of more than 11 000 medical practitioners.
South African President Thabo Mbeki pressed Burundian political leaders on Monday to agree on elections, seen as crucial for advancing peace in the Central African country, wracked by civil war since 1993. Talks between Burundi’s president and leaders of former rebel groups and political parties opened in acrimony in Pretoria on Saturday.
Missing South African diplomat Nicky Scholtz has been found, apparently unharmed, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. Malaysia’s Sunday Mail newspaper reported that the police investigation centred on Scholtz’s personal life including a possible love tryst.
Girls under 18 can legally have abortions without parental consent, the Pretoria High Court ruled on Friday. The court dismissed the Christian Lawyers’ Association’s (CLA) challenge to the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act. This is the second time the CLA has lost an court challenge to the Act.
There is no legal duty on the South African government to take any steps to protect its citizens in distress abroad, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Argument was being led on behalf of the government, which opposes an application for state intervention by 70 South African alleged mercenaries being held in Zimbabwe.
South African investigators had enough evidence to apply for the extradition for trial of 70 South African suspected mercenaries held in Zimbabwe, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. The 70 men were arrested in March on suspicion of plotting a coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea and are seeking a court order that they be tried in South Africa under the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.
Seventy South Africans being held in Zimbabwe on suspicion of plotting a coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea face real prospects of being executed if sent to that country for trial, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. In court papers, Samuel Kaunda and 69 others asked the court to direct the South African government to ensure they are not tried in Equatorial Guinea.
E Guinea ‘must deal’ with the matter
Inmates at Pretoria’s prison were detained under ”atrocious conditions”, according to a report by two advocates handed to the city’s High Court on Monday. Judge Essop Patel earlier this year requested the Pretoria Bar Council to appoint advocates to investigate complaints by five prisoners, who approached the court for help, saying that they were incarcerated under inhuman conditions that violated their human rights.
Environmental lobby group Biowatch sought a Pretoria High Court order on Monday compelling the government to divulge details of all genetically modified (GM) organisms brought into or manufactured in the country to date. The body wants the state to make available an extensive list of facts concerning each permit.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will have to fight another day — her and her financial adviser Addy Moolman’s Pretoria High Court appeal against their criminal convictions was postponed on Monday. Moolman’s legal team had requested the postponement. Madikizela-Mandela’s team was ready to go ahead.
The Foreign Affairs department was trying to verify on Friday the citizenship of two men, said to be South Africans, in trouble with the law in Indonesia and Thailand. ”We are awaiting verification of the identities of the two men from our respective South African missions,” a departmental official said.
A 26-year-old former employee of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) shot a 42-year-old woman in the head on Thursday afternoon at his former place of work and afterwards shot himself, Pretoria police said. The man was on the second floor of the SABS building in Groenkloof with the woman who was handling his file.
Ten tertiary education institutions offering Masters in Business Administration qualifications have had their MBA courses scrapped, the Council for Higher Education said on Thursday. Six existing business schools received full accreditation.
The South African government was gravely concerned at the ongoing house demolitions and military incursions by the Israeli defence force in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday. The department said what has been witnessed in the past week was clearly counterproductive to peace.
More than 80 cases of child abuse are reported in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, each month, said a member of the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit, Captain Shiluvane Malunyane, on Tuesday. He also said there were more cases being reported every month.
The South African government is still waiting to hear when ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his entourage are to arrive in the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the government was waiting for an official communiqué from the Caribbean Economic Community as to the exact date.
South Africa remains last in a survey of 22 countries able to conduct electronic government operations, but this should be seen in the correct context, said Accenture’s Charles Webster on Monday. ”South Africa is the only African country in the survey and was competing against First World countries. In this light it’s not bad at all,” said Webster.
Millionaire farmer and coup plotter Lourens du Plessis on Friday told the Boeremag treason trial in Pretoria he does not think blacks are the problem in the country ”because our fight is not against flesh and blood but against evil spirits in the air”. Du Plessis said he has undergone a religious change after being arrested for treason.
The government intends to create a ”lot of pressure” within the private banking sector by forcing it match the savings interest rates of the newly launched RSA Retail Bond launched on Friday in Pretoria, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said. The public has the option to purchase one of three bond types.
The Democratic Alliance on Thursday questioned the government’s wisdom in allowing ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide ”visitor status” in South Africa, saying the decision has not been adequately explained. The DA also objected to the costs involved in accommodating Aristide and his entourage.
The Electoral Court presided over a tug of war on Tuesday over 2 666 votes that could give the African Christian Democratic Party a seventh National Assembly seat but leave the Azanian People’s Organisation with one. The ACDP claims the votes, cast in Khayelitsha on April 14, were wrongly credited to Azapo.
Self-confessed Boeremag coup plotter Lourens du Plessis on Tuesday told the treason trial in Pretoria of plans to involve members of the police’s disbanded Civil Cooperation Bureau in the coup. According to Du Plessis, he had a meeting with an alleged former bureau member who said he could get a missile — but nothing came of the plan.