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/ 14 January 2008
Eleven people who were allegedly carrying out illegal abortions were arrested in central Johannesburg, the city said on Monday. City officials and metro police came upon a makeshift hospital of horrors on Friday when they were trying to clean central Johannesburg of ”poster pollution”.
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/ 14 January 2008
Charges against Gerrie Nel, the head of the Directorate of Special Operations, or the Scorpions, in Gauteng, were withdrawn in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday. ”After careful consideration of the evidence in the docket, the decision was made to withdraw the charges,” chief prosecutor Matric Lupondo said during Nel’s brief appearance.
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/ 13 January 2008
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi has been granted an extended leave of absence, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday. Speaking at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, Mbeki said Selebi had requested the leave himself. This follows Friday’s revelations by the National Prosecuting Authority that it was ready to charge Selebi with corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering.
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/ 11 January 2008
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi is to be charged with corruption and defeating the course of justice after his application to prevent the National Prosecuting Authority from prosecuting him was denied in the Pretoria High Court on Friday. Judge Nico Coetzee said Selebi’s application bore no merit.
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/ 10 January 2008
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) made a ”concerted effort” to undermine investigations into Scorpions boss Gerrie Nel and prevent his prosecution, Gauteng police said on Thursday. In a statement, Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini said prosecutors had refused to look at evidence presented to them in September, which implicated Nel in criminal activity.
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/ 28 December 2007
Rescue services are still searching for the Cessna 210 light aircraft that went missing on Wednesday, said South African Search and Rescue Organisation head Charles Norval on Friday. ”We haven’t had success, but are still searching. The rescue team is following all the leads,” Norval said.
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/ 13 December 2007
A bomb scare disrupted proceedings at the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court for about two hours on Thursday. Police spokesperson Captain Paul Ramaloko said chief magistrate Desmond Nair was informed of a call, warning about a bomb, just after 10am. Several police units reacted and arrived at the scene.
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/ 13 December 2007
National, provincial and local government departments, together with state agencies in the various provinces, will work together to manage congestion at the country’s busiest land border posts over the festive season, the border-control operational coordinating committee said on Thursday.
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/ 7 December 2007
The sheer number of crimes being committed in South Africa is still at an unacceptable level, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said on Friday. The decrease in reported crime, however, is encouraging, it said. The rights body said its finding on the unacceptable level of crime is ”exacerbated by the massive under-reporting of crime”.
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/ 7 December 2007
Serial rapist Mongezi Jinxela was found guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday on 220 charges of rape, kidnapping, robbery and assault, the National Prosecuting Authority said. Spokesperson Tlali Tlali said Justice George Maluleka found Jinxela guilty of raping 57 women — making him one of the country’s worst serial rape offenders.
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/ 6 December 2007
The South African Police Service (SAPS) was not involved in reviewing the arrest warrant for its National Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said on Thursday. However, he confirmed that the warrant was indeed the subject of review.
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/ 6 December 2007
Opposition parties have lamented the increases in crime detailed in the latest statistics for April to September, which were released on Thursday. It was deplorable and made a mockery of Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula’s assurances that the crime rate was under control, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Diane Kohler-Barnard said.
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/ 6 December 2007
President Thabo Mbeki took issue with the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) report on South Africa, which suggested that there was an unacceptably high level of violent crime in the country. This emerged when the APRM report was unceremoniously released as part of a post-Cabinet media briefing at the Union Buildings on Thursday.
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/ 6 December 2007
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s office did not want to comment on the plea bargaining and 10-year suspended sentence for drug trafficking handed down to Glenn Agliotti on Wednesday. Spokesperson Director Sally de Beer said: ”You must have noticed it was a Scorpions’ case so you will have to phone them.”
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/ 3 December 2007
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has declined to discuss the withdrawal of its protection services for South African Communist Party general secretary Blade Nzimande. ”It’s not something we can discuss in the public domain,” said national police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Vish Naidoo on Monday.
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/ 30 November 2007
Fifteen people were arrested during a crime-fighting operation at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport on Friday, said the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa). ”Fifteen people have so far been arrested and 10 vehicles have been impounded,” said Acsa spokesperson Tasniem Patel.
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/ 28 November 2007
A ferry boat carrying more than 70 people capsized on Roodeplaat Dam, north of Pretoria, on Wednesday afternoon, Tshwane emergency services said. Spokesperson Johan Pieterse said one passenger suffered a serious leg laceration and was taken to hospital. However, there were conflicting reports on the number of injured.
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/ 27 November 2007
More than 28 000 animals were stolen from farms around the country over the past 18 months, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. Less than 40% of the stock — including game, cattle, sheep and goats — was recovered, DA rural safety spokesperson Ryno King said in a statement.
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/ 24 November 2007
Western Cape Premier Ibrahim Rasool on Saturday met emergency personnel after a killer storm left two dead and damage estimated at around R600-million. An official of the devastated Eden district municipality said storms that ravaged the Cape have caused damage estimated between R500-million and R600-million to the Poort area.
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/ 14 November 2007
The ongoing strike that has seen construction workers down tools at Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium could spread to other 2010 Soccer World Cup stadiums that are under construction, as well as the high-speed Gautrain. Meanwhile, about 600 striking construction workers marched to Durban’s City Hall on Wednesday.
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/ 7 November 2007
The war to halt perlemoen (abalone) poaching has pitched R180-a-kilogram divers on the one side against R4 000-a-month marine inspectors on the other, MPs heard on Wednesday during a briefing to members of Parliament’s environmental affairs portfolio committee.
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/ 6 November 2007
More South African police officers were killed in the 11 years since the end of apartheid than in the previous period, a new study that highlights one of the world’s highest crime rates showed on Tuesday. The South African Institute of Race Relations said 1 894 police officers were killed between 1995 and 2005.
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/ 1 November 2007
Corruption-related complaints about the South African Police Service surged dramatically after its Anti-Corruption Unit was shut down in 2002, according to research by the Institute for Security Studies. An average of 43 cases were lodged each year between 1997 and 2002. This shot up to an average of 125 cases each year between 2002 and 2006.
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/ 31 October 2007
Crime and violence are a way of life in South Africa and, according to David Bruce of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, respect for justice and the law needs to be fostered. Bruce was speaking at a seminar on <i>The State of Criminal Justice: Building Respect for Justice and Human Rights</i> in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
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/ 26 October 2007
A judge on Thursday blocked a British decision to deport a South African former police officer who claims he would face violence from gang members if he returned to his homeland. Former sergeant David Andreason, who stopped working as a police officer in 2001 due to stress, fled Durban for Britain after an attempt on his life in 2005.
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/ 23 October 2007
All charges brought against Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille for her participation in protest marches have been dropped, the Western Cape director of public prosecutions said on Tuesday. Zille, who is also mayor of Cape Town, was charged in terms of the Regulation of Gatherings Act.
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/ 22 October 2007
Stock theft in South Africa has amounted to R327 676 500 in the past year, the National Stock Theft Forum said on Monday. ”At the moment, stock theft is hampering the profitability of the stock farmers and it is also interfering with the government’s land-reform process, as well as the empowering of the emerging farmers,” the forum said in a statement.
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/ 22 October 2007
Hundreds of ecstatic rugby supporters are set to throng the arrivals hall at OR Tambo International Airport on Tuesday morning when the Springboks bring the Webb Ellis trophy home. The newly crowned world champions will be arriving from France on Tuesday at about 6.50am.
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/ 18 October 2007
Security measures will be tightened in shopping centres across the country, Business against Crime (BAC) said in Johannesburg on Thursday. Addressing a media conference in Illovo, BAC’s Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane said the prevalence of violent crimes in shopping centres was of serious concern for the government, the business sector and law-abiding citizens.
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/ 17 October 2007
The National Empowerment Fund (NEF) has approved expansion capital funding of R7,2-million to Iglhaut-Allrad SA, a black economic empowerment (BEE) company in the automotive industry. The NEF’s chief investment officer, Frencel Gillion, announced the initiative in Pretoria on Wednesday.
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/ 16 October 2007
Western Cape police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Tuesday scoffed at claims that police are about to arrest Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker. ”We wish to state that there is no truth in reports that [they] will be arrested and/or be brought before court this week,” NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali said.
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/ 16 October 2007
The accident at the South African National Defence Force’s Lohatlha training grounds last week happened immediately after technicians had finished repairing the weapon, a Mark V twin-barrelled 35mm gun, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said in the National Assembly on Tuesday.