Johannesburg’s metro police have deployed 34 officers to help police by-laws in Johannesburg’s parks, cemeteries and open spaces, City Parks said on Tuesday. They will work with 30 park wardens already policing the areas, as well as community policing forums and the South African Police Service.
A third state witness, testifying in the Pretoria Regional Court on Thursday, described his former boss, Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride, as ”the mafia” and ”a liar”. Former metro police officer Patrick Johnston also said McBride was someone he was afraid of.
Police brutality in South Africa needs to be stamped out, the South African Human Rights Commission (SARHC) said on Wednesday. The SAHRC was referring to recent raids by police on Stellenbosch night spots as well as on the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg. In the raids, police allegedly assaulted a number of immigrants and patrons.
Racial tension within Mpumalanga police stations has reached ”ugly” proportions, says the province’s safety and security minister, Fish Mahlalela. ”The tension between black and white officers at police stations is ugly and dents … the fight against crime,” he told a meeting on Thursday.
Johannesburg Metro police said on Tuesday they had not tested Kwaito star Mandoza for driving under the influence of alcohol after an accident on Saturday because he was being treated at the scene by paramedics. Two people were killed when Mandoza smashed into the back of their car.
The South African Communist Party has asked the South African Police Service to finalise its investigation into a donation scandal after an internal audit cleared their secretary general Blade Nzimande. The SACP audit was set up to investigate the whereabouts of R500 000 donated to the party by controversial businessman Charles Modise.
South Africans should arm themselves to ward off criminals, regardless of government’s efforts to disarm citizens, Gun Owners South Africa (Gosa) said on Saturday. Gosa said South Africa’s justice system was ”on the verge of collapse” and that the police and security forces were ”in a state of total disarray”.
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/ 18 February 2008
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s national budget speech on Wednesday is even more keenly anticipated this year in view of the electricity crisis and its anticipated negative effects on the economy, and Democratic Alliance spokesperson Kobus Marais has urged Manuel to tackle the crisis head-on.
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/ 18 February 2008
The acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Mokotedi Mpshe, on Monday said he was puzzled by statements saying the Scorpions are to be ”disbanded” on the one hand, and ”dissolved” on the other, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported.
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/ 15 February 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, the mayor of Cape Town, is once again going to challenge the authorities by marching against gangsterism and drugs in a community where the drug lords are thriving. She announced that on Sunday she would conduct a march through the streets of Macassar in the east of the city, near Somerset West.
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/ 14 February 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille is to request a meeting with African National Congress president Jacob Zuma to discuss the future of the Scorpions, she said on Thursday. ”I intend to put this challenge to him. I will write to Mr Zuma and request an urgent meeting to state unambiguously the disastrous consequences that disbanding the Scorpions will have for South Africa.”
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/ 12 February 2008
South Africa’s elite, FBI-style Scorpions anti-crime unit will be dissolved, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said on Tuesday. ”The Scorpions … will be dissolved and the organised crime unit of the police will be phased out and a new, amalgamated unit will be created,” Nqakula told Parliament in Cape Town.
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/ 8 February 2008
There was nothing ”unusual” about President Thabo Mbeki’s Friday State of the Nation address, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said. ”Contrary to the stated theme of his speech, this was business as usual for the president,” she said. Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said Mbeki’s address was ”another list of promises”.
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/ 7 February 2008
There is a greater public sense of anticipation about what President Thabo Mbeki will say in his State of the Nation address on Friday than before any previous such speech he has delivered since assuming office in 1999. This is in part due to the recent dramatic twist in Mbeki’s political fortunes.
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/ 6 February 2008
Many Zimbabwean refugees seek shelter at the Central Methodist church in Johannesburg’s CBD, sleeping on stairs and in passageways in the only place they can find free accommodation. Up to 1 500 refugees living on the church premises were arrested in a late-night raid last week to round up illegal immigrants.
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/ 6 February 2008
About 300 police reservists handed over a memorandum of grievances to the Presidency in Pretoria on Wednesday. The two-page memorandum called for the ”immediate and unconditional” integration of 8 000 reservists into the South African Police Service (SAPS). It also called for the remuneration of reservists.
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/ 5 February 2008
The Scorpions are the country’s last effective corruption-busting unit and disbanding them will affect the fight against organised crime, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. ”Every time special units were integrated [into the police] it has impacted on the ability to fight crime in that area,” party spokesperson Tertius Delport said.
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/ 1 February 2008
Dealing with poor attendance by African National Congress (ANC) members at parliamentary and caucus meetings would be one of the year’s priorities, the party’s chief whip said on Friday. Nathi Mthethwa said: ”Inculcating a culture of discipline among some of the organisation’s public representatives in this institution will form part of the priorities.”
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/ 1 February 2008
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi was charged with three counts of corruption and one of defeating the ends of justice in the Randburg Regional Court on Friday. He also faced an alternate charge of receiving an unauthorised gratification ”by a person who is party to an employment relation”. The case was postponed to June 26.
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/ 31 January 2008
Central Methodist Church Bishop Paul Verryn has condemned the heavy-handed way in which police arrested up to 1Â 500 refugees housed at his church in the Johannesburg CBD. The arrests were made during a late-night raid on Wednesday. The church is seen as a sanctuary for Zimbabwean refugees.
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/ 31 January 2008
It will likely be a short first appearance for police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi in the Randburg Regional Court on Friday, a member of his legal team said. Selebi would be present at the court but it was likely that his case was going to be postponed, advocate Fanus Coetzee said on Thursday.
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/ 30 January 2008
A task team will be established to investigate a series of recent rapes and killings similar to the work of a serial killer who had operated in and around Pietermaritzburg in the 1990s, police said on Wednesday. The team will comprise six experienced detectives.
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/ 30 January 2008
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille was not guilty of any wrongdoing in connection with the city probe into councillor Badih Chaaban, an independent inquiry into the matter has found. ”The allegations around the investigation into councillor Chaaban have been nothing more than a smear campaign,” Zille said on Wednesday.
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/ 30 January 2008
Circumstances surrounding the arrest of Scorpions investigator Ivor Powell will be investigated, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) said on Wednesday. ”We are investigating the matter. The decision comes after a letter of complaint was received from the Democratic Alliance,” said spokesperson Dikeledi Phiri.
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/ 28 January 2008
President Thabo Mbeki has taken opposition leader Helen Zille into his confidence on the case of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi and on other contentious issues, she said on Monday. She met Mbeki at the Union Buildings in Pretoria for talks that lasted for longer than two hours.
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/ 28 January 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille arrived for a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki at the Union Buildings just before 2pm on Monday. The electricity supply crisis, the indictment of African National Congress president Jacob Zuma and the prosecution of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi were some of the agenda points for the talks.
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/ 24 January 2008
Why, in God’s name, do the Scorpions need to be dissolved into the South African Police Service?
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/ 22 January 2008
The government will look at ways in which members of the Scorpions performing police functions can be absorbed into the police, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. The African National Congress has decided that such members of the Directorate of Special Operations should be absorbed into the South African Police Service.
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/ 22 January 2008
Scorpions investigator Ivor Powell was granted R1 000 bail in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. His case was remanded to April 29 pending the outcome of his blood alcohol tests. He was arrested on Tuesday night, apparently in the company of alleged Americans gang boss Igshaan Davids.
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/ 22 January 2008
A top Scorpions investigator is expected to appear in court on Wednesday morning on charges relating to driving under the influence of alcohol, Talk Radio 702 reported on Tuesday. Senior Scorpion Ivor Powell was apparently arrested with fugitive gang boss Igshaan Davids in Woodstock, on Tuesday evening.
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/ 21 January 2008
The African National Congress (ANC) is getting rid of the Scorpions in order to protect ANC members from corruption charges, according to the leader of the Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille. Zille said on Monday that besides the seven convicted criminals on the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), six NEC members are currently the subject of investigations.
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/ 20 January 2008
It has not been decided whether African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe will become South Africa’s deputy president, the party’s secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, said on Sunday at the close of the ANC national executive committee’s meeting in Midrand.