Pretoria – A psychological report on the so-called “Modimolle monster” Johan Kotze is subjective, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Monday.

Clinical psychologist Tertia Spangenberg initially said the report was not subjective, as Kotze did not know the criteria for dissociation, and had merely answered her questions.

However, Judge Bert Bam put it to her that the report was based on what Kotze had told her. She agreed.

Kotze is accused of orchestrating the gang-rape of his former wife Ina Bonnette and of murdering his stepson Conrad, 19, in his rented home in Modimolle on January 3, 2012. At the time, Bonnette was still married to Kotze, but lived in her own flat.

Kotze’s co-accused, Andries Sithole, Pieta Mohlane, and Frans Mphaka are accused of kidnapping, assaulting, repeatedly raping, and attempting to murder Bonnette that day.

In her report, Spangenberg found Kotze was not accountable for his actions.

“I am of the opinion that Mr Kotze was not accountable for the alleged actions of which he stands accused,” she said.

“It is my opinion that the combination of Mr Kotze’s narcissistic personality disorder, superimposed on traumatic psychological injuries, combined with an unmanaged, long-standing, major depression and untreated and unresolved acute stress disorder, resulted in a state of psychological dissociation during his alleged criminal acts.”

Bam asked her on Monday when this dissociation started and ended.

She said the dissociation would have started during an argument between Kotze and Bonnette on January 3.

Bonnette presented him with the couple’s vibrator and told him to use it on his next wife.

However, Spangenberg could not say with certainty when it ended. She testified that Kotze appeared to remain dissociated when he was in his car after the attack.

Bam put it to her that Kotze testified he had known he had committed an offence when he left the house.

Spangenberg said Kotze did not tell her this during their evaluation.

She earlier told the court Kotze’s case was the first she had done involving diminished capacity.

The defence for Kotze’s co-accused requested that it cross-examine Spangenberg after the State, as it needed a report on Kotze which another psychologist compiled in 2012. – Sapa

Johannesburg – For months they would lie in wait at dumping areas around Joburg, dressed in worn-out and dirty overalls pretending to be peasants.

In the early hours of the morning, late at night, in the freezing cold or in pouring rain, Warrant Officer Morake Khoali, Captain Maria Mokhele, constables Leutsoa Mofokeng and Jerry Khambule, from the Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit in Vereeniging, would be there.

For more www.iol.co.za

Boston – Seven days after the Boston Marathon bombings, the city planned to mark the traumatic week with mournful silence and a return to its bustling commute.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has asked residents to observe a moment of silence at 2.50pm on Monday, the time the first of the two bombs exploded near the finish line of Boston’s famous race. Bells will ring across the city and state after the minute-long tribute to the victims.

Many Boston residents are returning to the workplaces and schools for the first time since a dramatic week came to an even more dramatic end.

Authorities on Friday had made the unprecedented request that residents stay at home during the manhunt for suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was discovered that evening hiding in a boat covered by a tarp in suburban Watertown. His older brother Tamerlan was earlier killed during a getaway attempt.

“It’s surreal,” said Barbara Alton, as she walked her dog along Newbury Street. “But I feel like things are starting to get back to  normal.”

In another sign of progress, city officials said they are beginning the process of re-opening to the public the six-block site around the bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 180. The announcement came on Sunday, a day when people could still watch investigators at the crime scene work in white jumpsuits.

Tsarnaev remained in hospital and unable to speak, with a gunshot wound to the throat. He was expected to be charged by federal authorities. The 19-year-old also is likely to face state charges in connection with the fatal shooting of MIT police officer Sean Collier in Cambridge, said Stephanie Guyotte, a spokesperson for the Middlesex District Attorney’s office.

A private funeral was scheduled on Monday for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker killed in the blasts. A memorial service will be held that night at Boston University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.

City churches on Sunday paused to mourn the dead as the city’s police commissioner said the two suspects had such a large cache of weapons that they may have been planning other attacks.

After the two brothers engaged in a gun battle with police early on Friday, authorities found many unexploded homemade bombs at the scene, along with more than 250 rounds of ammunition.

Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the stockpile was “as dangerous as it gets in urban policing”.

“We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene – the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had – that they were going to attack other individuals. That’s my belief at this point.”  Davis told CBS’s Face the Nation.

On Fox News Sunday, he said authorities cannot be positive there are not more explosives somewhere that have not been found. But the people of Boston are safe, he insisted.

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are ethnic Chechens from southern Russia. The motive for the bombings remained unclear.

Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the surviving brother’s throat wound raised questions about when he will be able to talk again, if ever.

The wound “doesn’t mean he can’t communicate, but right now I think he’s in a condition where we can’t get any information from him at all”, Coats told ABC’s This Week.

It was not clear whether Tsarnaev was shot by police or inflicted the wound himself.

In the final standoff with police, shots were fired from the boat, but investigators have not determined where the gunfire was aimed, Davis said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the parents of Tamerlan Tsarnaev insisted on Sunday that he came to Dagestan and Chechnya last year to visit relatives and had nothing to do with the militants operating in the volatile part of Russia. His father said he slept much of the time.

A lawyer for Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife told the AP on Sunday night that federal authorities have asked to speak with her, and that he is discussing with them how to proceed.

Attorney Amato DeLuca said Katherine Russell Tsarnaev did not suspect her husband of anything, and that there was no reason for her to have suspected him. He said she had been working 70 to 80 hours, seven days a week, as a home health care aide. While she was at work, her husband cared for their toddler daughter, he said.

The younger Tsarnaev could be charged any day. The most serious charge available to federal prosecutors would be the use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people, which carries a possible death sentence. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

Across the rattled streets of Boston, churches opened their doors to remember the dead and ease the grief of the living.

At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, photographs of the three people killed in the attack and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer slain Thursday were displayed on the altar, each face illuminated by a glowing white pillar candle.

“I hope we can all heal and move forward,” said Kelly McKernan, who was crying as she left the service. “And obviously, the Mass today was a first step for us in that direction.”

A six-block segment of Boylston Street, where the bombs were detonated, remained closed on Sunday. But Mayor Thomas Menino said on Sunday that once the scene is released by the FBI, the city will follow a five-step process, including environmental testing and a safety assessment of buildings. The exact timetable was uncertain.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was tracing the suspects’ weapons to try to determine how they were obtained.

Neither of the brothers had permission to carry a gun. Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas said it was unclear whether either of them ever applied for a gun permit, and the applications are not considered public records.

But the younger brother would have been denied a permit based on his age alone. Only people 21 or older are allowed gun licences in Massachusetts. – Sapa-AP

The North West Provincial government is to pursue closer links with the regional governments of Madrid and Navarra in Spain for promoting tourism with particular focus on music, art, exchange and training of personnel from District and local municipalities in the North West Province in the development of Rural Tourism.

The resolution adopted by the Provincial Executive Council (Exco) follows a trip a trip undertaken by MEC for Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism, Motlalepula Rosho and a provincial delegation to FITUR International Trade Show in Madrid, Spain two months ago.

Premier Thandi Modise says that the province needs to emulate the Spanish approach to tourism research and development which the delegation found to be most effective and explore the relationship established by MEC Rosho for the Hotel Division in respect of exchange of expertise between the Indonesian Chefs and the Hotel Schools Division in Madrid.

“The potential for students and staff exchanges programme established by the South African Embassy in Madrid especially on Hospitality training as well as Tourist Guiding should be followed through,” emphasised Premier Modise.

The province anticipates that the Memorandum of Understanding between South Africa and the hunting communities (Spain Hunting Association) will be finalised by September this year.

BY Obakeng Maje

The North West Department of Health MEC, Dr Magome Masike has learnt with shock of the death of former MEC for Health in the province Mme Onewang Rebecca Kasienyane.

She passed on over the weekend at Mafikeng Provincial Hospital where she was admitted.

She died of a lung cancer complication which has been troubling her for some time.

“We are saddened by the loss of this humbled human being who was my predecessor in the North West Department of Health and a fellow comrade in the African National Congress.  She laid the ground for the good work that we continue to do to improve the health of our people,” said MEC Dr Magome Masike.

“We share the loss that is deeply felt by the family and hope that they will find solace in knowing that God is with them in these trying times and we wish for her soul to rest in peace.” he said.

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Johannesburg – Former Bafana Bafana player Bryce Moon has been fined R60 000, or two years’ imprisonment, for culpable homicide, according to reports.

His licence has also been suspended for six months.

Earlier this month, Moon was convicted of culpable homicide for the June 2009 incident in which he hit Zimbabwean domestic worker Mavis Ncube with his Mercedes-Benz on Katherine Road in Sandton.

Ncube had been with her cousin, Thandi Sibanda, and both were on their way to work.

Ncube died later in hospital.

On April 12, Magistrate Vincent Pienaar acquitted the soccer star of attempted murder, negligent and reckless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court. – IOL

Kimberley – A senior staff member at the Noupoort Combined School, who was charged for coercing a young teacher into perform oral sex on him in the computer room on Monday, has since tendered his resignation on two occasions.

The accused, Rudy Reed, was granted R1 000 bail in the Noupoort Magistrate’s Court late on Thursday afternoon. 

Police spokesman, Lieutenant Sergio Kock, said the 38-year-old man was arrested by the police at his home in Noupoort on Wednesday evening on charges of sexual assault.

Educators at the school had requested that the school be closed until further notice, although lessons continued as normal on Thursday, according to the Department of Education. 

The complainant on Thursday gave details to the department on how she was allegedly taken by force by the staff member after she was summoned to bring him the class list. 

“When I entered the computer room he was already inside waiting behind the door. He locked the door but I was not aware of what was happening. He then hugged and kissed me by force. I refused and wished to know what was happening because I don’t have any relationship with him.

“I screamed, but he told me that it was no use because nobody could hear me.

“He touched my breasts, rubbed my body and told me that I was cute and that he wanted to have sex with me for a long time. He loosened his belt and forced me to perform oral sex on him.

“I cannot cope with anything my life is a mess.” 

She also related how she was sexually abused by her uncle and was threatened with a pistol when she was very young.

“I don’t know where to go. I request your immediate intervention in this regard,” she told the Department of Education. 

Spokesman for the department, Sydney Stander, said that Reed was suspended with immediate effect.

“In this case, because we deem his action of resigning after being suspended as a way of avoiding due process, the Employment of Educators Act empowers the employer to block such an employee on the Persal system.” 

He indicated that the necessary steps were taken to protect the victim and safeguard the interests of women and children. 

“The department is continuing with internal investigations. The district has sent a multi-disciplinary team that will provide support to affected learners and female educators. There is no crisis in terms of attendance and there no truth in suggestions that the school will be closed indefinitely.”

He added that, according to their records, the staff member resigned on Wednesday, withdrew his resignation almost immediately, and then tendered his resignation again on Thursday morning.

Stander explained that a staff member is granted 30 days in which to retract a resignation. 

“Once a resignation is submitted to the district director, it is forwarded with recommendations to the head office of the Human Resources Unit for a final decision.” 

The police have requested that any information regarding the case be forwarded to Detective Sergeant Melany Oliphant on 053 632 9627.

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When Luyanda Ngcombolo*, 28, was told to attend an identity parade and point out the two men who had raped her in a taxi, she knew that relying on her eyes would be useless.

She didn’t know what her rapists looked like. She had just knocked off one night and flagged down the taxi, not paying attention to the two people at the front.

For more www.iol.co.za

The SA Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has denied reports that the entity has targeted numerous major roads across the country for further tolling.

This is after the DA said yesterday that Sanral had revealed new plans to toll numerous roads at a closed parliamentary portfolio committee meeting last week.

For more www.iol.co.za

South African households are poorer than they were in 1975, largely due to recessionary factors, according to the Momentum/Unisa Wealth Index for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Economists and scholars who compile the wealth index said on Friday that in real terms, the estimated average wealth of households was lower in 2012 than in 1975.

Their analysis indicates that real wealth per household on average decreased by 0.04 percent a year over the period, declining from R326 000 in 1975 to R287 000 in 2012.

A further breakdown shows that between 1975 and 1994, real net worth per household on average decreased by 1.8 percent a year.

“The decrease in the real net worth per household over the period 1975-2012 is a real cause for concern and policymakers, the private sector, trade unions and households themselves should all take responsibility in ensuring a larger emphasis on households’ asset accumulation,” said Bernadene de Clercq, the head of the personal finance research unit at Unisa’s Bureau of Market Research.

The report says that the impact of the 2008 economic recession on households was severe, taking five years of accumulation off their wealth, which “might force households to postpone their retirement or start saving more”.

The methodology for the index deviated from expressing wealth in terms of income as is usually done, but rather considered households as possessing balance sheets comprising assets and liabilities, which are checked against each other.

For example, the index said, many households were income-poor but rich in assets, indicating the importance of also monitoring household wealth to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the true financial health of households in the country.

In terms of the fourth quarter, collectively households experienced a second consecutive strong increase in their nominal wealth due to a strong increase in the value of household assets, despite mining strikes that dented confidence, mediocre domestic growth and a slow international economy.