Blog South Africa

A trial date has been set for 12 people accused of setting a pastor alight and murdering him. One of the accused is the induna of the community.

The group had claimed that Albert Malwane, a pastor of the Izwi Zion Christian Church in Boschfontein in South Africa had been using a magic invisible penis to sleep with women.

They also accused him of having the ability of talking to animals and accused his wife of being able to turn into a snail in order to terrorise the community.

Not only did the group, including the community headman, burn and kill the pastor, but they also burnt down his home in the Etitandini informal settlement.

His wife and daughter managed to escape and hide from the rabble.

The villagers then complained that Malwane’s family had used ‘muti’ to make them sick after Malwane’s death.

The 12 accused have not been asked to plead.

Tags: Crime, Society & Culture by James
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Video has been released of a South African police-raid carried out against the hapless patrons at the 24-hour Catz Pyjamas Bistro in Mellville.

Heavily-armed cops storming in, yelling loudly, kicking patrons off their chairs and onto the floors. Unresisting patrons were getting kicked and beaten by police.

Patrons then were forced downstairs, where 12 men and 1 woman were dumped into 2 police vehicles. The 13 people were only released from Brixton police station at 15:00 on Saturday.

Apparently they are being charged with ‘resisting arrest’.

The new video shows that these people did NOT resist arrest and show that police were the ones being violent and violating the patrons rights.

An article from the Rapport Newspaper says:

“On the video one can see one patron leaving the toilet and coming back into the restaurant – and one cop immediately grabs him by the arm and beats him in the face. The assaulted man falls to the floor – and a third cop then joins in and kicks the man repeatedly in the stomach, ribs and face.
When the three cops finally are done assaulting him, he tries to sit down on a chair – but another cop then pulls him over, chair and all.

By 15:00 Saturday-afternoon, relatives were still waiting outside the police station, anxiously waiting for the arrested restaurant-patrons’ release. One woman waiting outside was Mrs Carmen Benjamin of Pretoria – she was arrested but not charged. Her husband Clint was charged with resisting arrest. “I was in one police-vehicle with my husband and other men. Nobody resisted when we were loaded into the vehicle. Everybody was too scared and shocked to do anything.’

….

SAPF warrant-officer Lorraine van Emmerik was asked to comment. She confirmed that ‘the police raided the restaurant because they were still open after 2am which is against the law. The police tried to close the place down but people interfered in their duties there.’ She couldn’t comment on the video because she hadn’t seen it, she added.

– Rapport

I am not an advocate of people suing as a general rule, but I do hope that these victims sue the police and win! It is about time people took a stand against these thugs and to hold them accountable for their actions.

Tags: Crime by James
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The song and dance continued in court with the appearance of Dr Linda Liebenberg who appeared for the minister of police’s legal team.

She stated that she has done 13 000 autopsies and supervides thousands of others in her career.

She said that she projected images of Inge’s head wounds onto a screen then superimposed photos of the ornamental hammer over the wounds. She concluded that the dimensions matched.

She said that the other wounds could have been caused by the bottle-opener end or the flat side of the hammer.

But it was the last comments which seemed to destroy all her previous evidence. She said that the hammer could not be excluded as the murder weapon…but neither could the tens of thousands of other hammers in the Western Cape!

Before she even entered the witness box, Judge Anton Veldhuizen said that he did not know how much further her testimony would take the matter.

After the testimony he went on to say:

“Where does that take us?”

One has to wonder why they even bothered to put Dr Liebenberg on the stand if they knew that she would say that.

It feels to me that the state’s team does not expect to win this case, but are probably hoping that the R46-million claim for malicious prosecution will be drastically reduced.

To me it appears that not only will Fred win the case, but will also probably be rewarded close to, if not exactly what he is claiming.

Tags: Crime, Inge Lotz Murder by James
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Sapa photographer Werner Beukes, Beeld photographer Herman Verwey and SABC cameraman Lewellyn Carstens were held for 45 minutes at the Musina police station on Wednesday morning. Their crime: taking photos and video of suspected rhino poachers!

It was only when the NPA intervened that they were released by police.

We have to ask ourselves what the government motives are considering the draft Protection of Information Bill. This disgusting bill could see journalists ending up in jail for publishing ‘classified information’, even if it is in the public interest.

Do you want to live in a society where freedom of the press is destroyed?

It will only be a matter of time before the government tries to silence bloggers who dare to expose corruption or question them on any subject. Each of us needs to make a stand against this travesty!

Tags: Crime, Government & Politics, Society & Culture by James
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In an extremely brief court appearance today, the charges against Nico Venter for the murder of Anika Smit were withdrawn by the prosecutor.

Prosecutor Tanya Carstens told Magistrate Barend van Schalkwyk the State was withdrawing all charges. She gave no reasons for this at all.

Nico Venter’s lawyer, Gerard Pretorius, also mentioned that he was clueless as to why the charges were withdrawn.

One has to wonder if the police had focused their investigation on the first person who crossed their paths – much like the police did with Fred van der Vyver in the Inge Lotz murder.

Police have been very close-lipped about the investigation, only mentioning previously that they were searching for a second unnamed suspect.

We were also told that super-cop Piet Byleveld was working the case, but he has since retired and there was no word on his thoughts on the case.

This all leaves us the following questions:

Who killed Anika?
Why did they kill her?
Are we ever going to see the person responsible brought to trial?
Have the police done the best job possible on this case?

Tags: Anika Smit Murder, Crime by James
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I wonder what is going on with the Anika Smit murder case.

Way back in May, her ex-boyfriend, Nico Venter, was arrested by the police. He was then released on R10 000 bail. This left relatives and friends angry and unhappy.

Johan Smit was a bit more down-to-earth. When commenting on the bail, he said:

“People say you are innocent until the court finds you guilty. I assume if he has not been convicted yet, I must accept the court’s decision”.

We discovered that Nico Venter was questioned by police on March 12 and that later in March he was asked to go back to the police offices. On legal advice he refused and was arrested later that day. He was later released to appear in court.

The following day we are told that the police are searching for a second suspect. They did not name the suspect or provide any other information. Now, months later, a second arrest is yet to be forthcoming.

A week or so later on March 21 it was reported that super-sleuth Brigadier Piet Byleveld had been called in by local police to assist in the case. He has not discussed why he was being brought into the case.

What is strange to me is that Nico Venter was granted bail and then Piet Byleveld is brought in on the case. I have a number of questions:
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Tags: Anika Smit Murder, Crime by James
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What is our society coming to, when a convicted double-murderer is spared jail because the court doesn’t foresee him repeating his crime?

In December 2005, Andries Mashele’s wife told him that she was leaving him. He was so enraged that he took his gun and murdered his wife and 4 year old son. He then turned the gun on himself, but survived.

Now Judge Ronel Tolmay of the Pretoria High Court has convicted him without ANY jail time at all!

Mashele got 10 years imprisonment, suspended for 5 years. He also has to complete 800 hours community service and to pay his deceased wife’s family a mere R2000.

The judge said that he was not the kind of individual who should be removed from society.

This judgement is disgusting and is typical for the ridiculous overly-liberal ‘justice’ system we have in place now.
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Tags: Crime by James
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Crime and murder has been rife in South Africa over the past decade or so, but it seems to me that murder is now reaching epidemic proportions. Other serious crime also seems to have escalted out of all proportion – take a look at the beating up of baby Marzaan Kruger.

These terrible things got so much worse when South Africa stopped using the death penalty.

Some Arguments for the Death Penalty

- Some argue that the death of a criminal gives closure to their victim’s (if they are still alive) and their families.

- The death penalty serves as a deterrent to criminals who may be considering committing a capital offence.

- One of the main principals of punishment and the judicial system is that the penalty fits the crime. If someone violently murders another individual or numerous people, then it makes sense for the punishment to be death.

- Some anti-death penalty campaigners describe examples of people on death row, or people have already been killed have then been proved innocent. Today, the accuracy of modern forensics and DNA testing makes it very unlikely for an innocent person to be put on death row. Furthering this point, it is argued that the number of innocent people that may be killed is equalised by the number of actual criminals that are set free.

- Putting people in prison, as opposed to executing them gives them a chance of parole (or the small chance of escape), meaning they can commit more crimes. Capital punishment means there is no chance of the criminal committing another crime.

Some Arguments Against the Death Penalty
[Read more →]

Tags: Crime by James
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Brittany Mitchell, the KwaZulu-Natal teenager who was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit murder after she tried to have the mother of her former boyfriend killed, will not face a trial, instead she will have to go to Anger Management classes, a life skills course and do 100 hours of community work.

Now it must be noted that the withdrawal, or diversion, of charges is used to prevent minors or adults with minor offences from going through court procedures and rather receive rehabilitative assistance.

So what exactly is classified as a “minor offence” these days if conspiracy to commit murder falls in that category?

This worrying court decision is quite rampant in the UK these days, where so many people have been pretty much “let off” without barely a slap on the wrist. The result of this in the UK has been a rise in crime, particularly amongst the youth. These young offenders have grown up knowing that nothing will be done to them, regardless of the crime committed.

We can already see this attitude amongst the youth of South Africa. Over the past ten years we have seen a massive rise in serious youth crime, including murder, rape and violence. It is court decisions such as this that can only fuel this “untouchable” belief amongst the youth and further fuel this out-of-control behaviour.

My personal feeling is that we need to bring back firm discipline to the schools and homes, as well as firm action by the courts. Kids need to know that there are boundaries and that when they cross them, there are severe consequences!

Tags: Crime, Society & Culture by James
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Today saw the resumption of the High Court trial of former DJ Heinrich van Rooyen – nearly two years after he was arrested for the rape and murder of two young women.

The trial should be interesting with some similar faces as in the van der Vyver trial. The chief investigating officer is none other than Director Attie Trollip and the lead prosecutor is state advocate Christhenus van der Vyfjer.

Many people who have been following the Inge Lotz murder trial, will also be closely scrutinizing the van Rooyen trial to see how the ‘team’ handles the prosecution and what went on in the investigation.

Both Trollip and van der Vyfjer have received some negative press regarding the van der Vyver investigation and trial. On the other hand other people have lauded their work. As the van der Vyver trial is not yet over, it is difficult to see what the judge and accessors think.

The van Rooyen case also features private investigators, alibis and of course the bantering between state and defence.

The judge in the van Rooyen trial is Justice Nathan Erasmus and the defence team is made up of Lunen Meyer and advocate Terry Price.

Tags: Crime by James
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