Kimberley – A Northern Cape man accused of raping of a six-week-old baby in Galeshewe will appear in the Kimberley Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, police said.

“As a mother, I was shocked and deeply saddened when I heard the tragic news,” national police commissioner Riah Phiyega said on Wednesday.

“We understand that the man who was arrested is the baby’s uncle,” she said.

“Whilst I am pleased that the perpetrator has been arrested, the incident and similar others which have taken place over the past couple of days in Galeshewe is something of huge concern to the police and broader community.”

The baby was allegedly raped by the 24-year-old man around 11.30pm on Tuesday.

Phiyega said she would visit the family and hold a prayer session on Thursday.

The baby was currently in a hospital intensive care unit.

Sapa

Johannesburg – Drama pupils offended by a question relating to baby rape in a matric exam paper were unprepared, examination authorities said on Wednesday.

Umalusi, the external quality assurance council that approved the exam, said dramatic arts was a subject that aimed to equip pupils by freeing their minds of bigotry and prejudice.

“That some learners by implication were offended by the question means the outcomes of the subject were not achieved,” spokesperson Lucky Ditaunyane said in a statement.

“[T]herefore, the learners are conceptually conflating and fudging the real issue of not being test wise and test prepared in dealing with the levels of difficulty and complexity of the test items.”

Some pupils, teachers, and parents were reportedly upset by a question that asked pupils how best to dramatically represent the rape of a baby, symbolically using a loaf of bread and a broomstick. The exam question was based on Lara Foot Newton’s play Tshepang, based on real events.

In 2001, 9-month-old Tshepang was brutally raped by her teenage mother’s ex-boyfriend, who was sentenced to life in prison. She was adopted when she left the hospital after reconstruction surgery.

Ditaunyane said Umalusi’s subject experts and moderators were sensitive to issues of national concern such as rape, violence, and abuse.

It was also important to consider that great dramatic works were contextual, historical, and socially relevant.

The exam question was about how a social issue could be made theatrically engaging, Ditaunyane said.

Excluding the question

Earlier, the basic education department said in a statement it would consider excluding the question from the exam.

“To ensure that no candidate has been negatively affected, the department will mark a sample of the scripts of learners from all nine provinces… to establish any possible disadvantage to the candidates,” it said.

“If there is evidence that candidates have been affected by this question, the question will be excluded from the question paper and the marking guidelines will be adjusted accordingly.”

The department said the examiners and moderators responsible for the exam question were within the prescripts of the curriculum.

The purpose of the question was to assess pupils’ understanding of an “action metaphor”.

“The horror and aversion the audience feels is achieved without resorting to an actual rape… Nowhere is it expected of the candidate to have to literally describe the actual act of raping a 9-month-old baby.”

The department believed that matric pupils, as young adults, were aware of South African social issues.

According to the department the internal moderator said the pupils were expected to explain how the broomstick and bread could be used to make an audience feel the horror of child rape, using props, lighting, sound, and stage directions.

“[The question] is valid and fair because the rape of babies is a relevant societal issue.”

– SAPA

Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma has declared that a special provincial official funeral be held for ANC stalwart Reggie September, the presidency said on Wednesday.

“The special provincial funeral is reserved for distinguished persons as decided by the president of the Republic,” spokesperson Mac Maharaj said in a statement.

“The president further instructed that the national flag must be flown at half-mast in the Gauteng province on the day of the funeral.”

September, 90, died in Cape Town over the weekend.

Further details of the funeral would be announced later.

He was a former trade unionist, member of parliament, and executive committee member of the ANC.

September was one of the first non-Africans to be elected onto the ANC’s national executive committee, at the Kabwe Conference in Zambia, in 1985.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Judgment on whether an accomplice could be convicted for a robbery with aggravating circumstances without proof of intent will be given by the Constitutional Court on Thursday.

On 27 August, the Constitutional Court heard an application by the minister of justice and the national director of public prosecutions for leave to appeal against a decision by the Western Cape High Court.

That court held that part of section 1(1)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Act was constitutionally invalid.

A magistrate’s court had convicted the respondents, Nontambi Masingili and others, of participating in robbery with aggravating circumstances, and the respondents appealed to the high court.

They argued that the conviction of accomplices in a robbery with “aggravating circumstances” without proof of them having intended those aggravating circumstances, was unconstitutional.

The high court found that under current criminal law, liability for robbery with aggravating circumstances could indeed be imposed on an accomplice in the absence of proof of intent for aggravating circumstances.

The court held that the offence violated the constitutional right not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily, and the presumption of innocence.

In the Constitutional Court, the minister argues that there is no imprisonment without fault under this offence because the State must prove the subjective existence of intent for robbery and the existence of aggravating circumstances.

The minister contends that this level of fault satisfies constitutional requirements.

The respondents argue that it is a constitutional requirement that the State prove the subjective intent behind each element of a crime in order to secure conviction, including aggravating circumstances.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – A 2-year-old girl was killed when she was knocked down by a vehicle in George in the Western Cape on Wednesday, paramedics said.

“Witnesses reported that the child suddenly appeared in Makou Street,” ER24 spokesperson Christo Venter said.

The toddler suffered serious injuries and died on the scene.

It was not yet known how the child managed to slip away from her guardian.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Two men accused of house robbery and burglaries, including a robbery at the house of Crime Line head Yusuf Abramjee, appeared in the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, Gauteng police said.

The case was postponed to 4 December for further investigation, police spokesperson Neville Malila said.

The men had also allegedly tried to buy a case docket from the police, he said.

Malila said the men were arrested in Atteridgeville on Monday, and had been linked to robberies at two homes in Erasmia, including Abramjee’s.

“They were arrested for a spate of house robberies, burglaries, and hijackings around Pretoria.”

Police seized three stolen cars, two unlicensed firearms, ammunition and money at the men’s home.

Robbers broke into Abramjee’s house and demanded the keys to his BMW on Friday morning.

They fired shots while reversing out of the garage.

Earlier that morning, the robbers targeted another house in a nearby street.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The Gauteng province’s advertising boards in the ANC colours is a threat to the country’s democracy, the FF Plus said on Wednesday.

“The advertisement campaign, which carries out government successes, will cost more than R2m a month,” Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) leader Pieter Mulder said in a statement.

“Propagandist advertisements in the colours of the governing party which is displayed during an election and paid for with taxpayers’ money would never be allowed in any mature democracy anywhere in the world.”

Opposition parties’ voters were in effect paying for what he called ANC propaganda during the election.

Beeld newspaper reported that Gauteng spent more than R2m a month of taxpayers’ money on advertising the province’s ANC-led government’s successes.

The province reportedly had 51 advertising boards around the province in the party’s green, black, and gold.

Thebe Mohatle, Gauteng provincial spokesperson, told the paper the advertising was put up as part of a government campaign to make South Africans aware of good service delivery.

He declined to give information on the budget for the campaign.

Continental Outdoor Media, who hires the advertising space, said it cost between R40 000 and R50 000 a month per board.

ANC spokesperson Keith Khoza asked how the board could be linked to the party when there was no party logo on it.

“Government is celebrating 20 years of democracy and it’s using colours that attract people. There are no restrictions on what colours to use.”

Mulder said the FF Plus would ask Public Protector Thuli Madonsela and the Independent Electoral Commission to investigate the “abuse” of taxpayers’ money.

He said the boards needed to be removed or the ANC had to be forced to pay for them with their own funds.

– SAPA

Mbombela – More than 20 witnesses are expected to testify in the R140m fraud trial of the Mpumalanga community safety department’s former head Thulani Sibuyi when it resumes in May.

Sibuyi, 37, and his co-accused, GNT security owner Vusi Mashaba, 41, appeared in the Nelspruit Regional Court on Wednesday, a Sapa correspondent reported.

“The State is ready for trial. The defence have been handed the list of witnesses and the disclosure of the docket has been made. They are aware of the final charges faced by their clients,” prosecutor Patrick Nkuna said.

“The State intends to bring more than 20 witnesses, which the defence has been furnished with.”

Sibuyi and Mashaba handed themselves over to the Nelspruit police on 8 August after a warrant of arrest was issued for them.

They were released on bail of R50 000 each.

Sibuyi faces charges of fraud and Mashaba charges of fraud, forgery, and uttering. They have not yet pleaded.

Magistrate Eddie Hall postponed the case to 7 May for trial.

He warned the two not to contact any of the witnesses.

“If it happens that you want to do business with the department and may contact some of the witnesses, you are warned to inform the state first,” he said.

Nkuna previously told the court that Mashaba, on behalf of his company GNT, allegedly submitted a fraudulent tax certificate when applying for a tender to provide security to government property or entities in the Gert Sibande region.

Nkuna said Sibuyi failed to stop the appointment, leading to GNT being paid R4m a month for three years.

Last month, Sibuyi resigned as HOD after he was arrested in Gauteng for alleged drunken driving. He was released on bail of R1 000 and would appear again in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court once the result of his blood test was known.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – South Africa is a transparent democracy in which everyone is held accountable, Police Deputy Minister Makhotso Sotyu said on Wednesday.

“We have the Human Rights Commission, the Competition Commission, the public protector, Icasa, the auditor general, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate [IPID] and many others,” Sotyu said at an IPID strategic planning session in Pretoria on Wednesday.

“Is there a country in which government and its institutions are held accountable to the extent that it happens in South Africa? Ours is a very transparent democracy in which everyone is held accountable.”

Sotyu said IPID’s core mandate was to make all South Africans feel safe and secure.

“Avoid getting involved in politics. Do not allow to be used by anyone to further political ends. You are not politicians. Be professionals and the citizens of this country will respect you for that,” she said.

Sotyu said that, according to IPID’s 2012/2013 annual report, it had dealt with 6 728 cases, which was 37% more than the 4 923 handled in the previous year.

Earlier this month, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said Cabinet had recommended the appointment of former Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride to head IPID.

“We believe Mr McBride’s appointment as head of IPID will help this important institution to achieve [its]… mandate,” Mthethwa said at the time.

Mthethwa’s ministry said in a statement that Cabinet decided to recommend McBride as IPID executive director at a meeting on 6 November.

“In terms of Section 6(2) of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate Act, 2011 (Act 1 of 2011) the relevant portfolio committee of Parliament must now consider the recommendation before the appointment can be confirmed,” the ministry said.

“IPID has been headed by an acting executive director for almost a year, and the stability of this important institution is crucial.”

Recommendation criticised

Opposition parties have criticised the decision to recommend McBride.

McBride, who is a former MP and government official, won an appeal in March against a conviction for drunken driving and attempting to obstruct justice.

He was arrested in 2006 after crashing his official car on the R511 following a Christmas party.

In September 2011, a Pretoria magistrate sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment for driving under the influence of alcohol, and in effect three years’ imprisonment for attempting to obstruct the course of justice.

In 1998, McBride was arrested in Mozambique on charges of gun-running. He spent seven months in a Maputo prison and was later cleared of all charges.

He claimed he was investigating illegal gun-running with the National Intelligence Agency.

In 1999, McBride faced an assault charge after he, underworld boss Cyril Beeka, and another man visited an escort agency and allegedly assaulted an employee.

McBride was part of an Umkhonto we Sizwe group that bombed the Why Not Restaurant and Magoo’s Bar in Durban on 14 June 1986.

Three people were killed and 69 were injured in the explosion. He was captured and convicted, and was sentenced to death.

In 1992, he was released after his actions were classified as politically motivated.

He was later granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

– SAPA

Cape Town – Additional police are expected to arrive in Cape Town ahead of a protest planned by a group that led a violent march to the city centre late in October.

Cape Town Informal Settlements Organisation who planned the march, which has been denied permission by authorities, will reportedly bus in at least 50 000 members from all over the Peninsula to the CBD on Friday.

– News24