Pietermaritzburg – A mass stabbing left one young man dead and six relatives hurt on Sunday afternoon.

It all started over a stolen jacket, said a relative of the dead man, 23-year-old Danisile Mayibenye.
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Johannesburg – The Athlone Magistrate’s Court, in Cape Town, will hear closing arguments on Monday in the bail application of a Zimbabwean man accused of killing a man and eating his heart.

On Thursday, the court heard that Andrew Chimboza, 35, was a danger to society and a flight risk.

Testifying in his bail application, investigating officer Sergeant Mpumelelo Yengwa said there was nothing keeping Chimboza in South Africa as he had no property or children.

Yengwa said he opposed bail because residents might kill Chimboza, he could kill himself, or endanger others. He believed the State had a strong case against him.

Chimboza came to Cape Town from Zimbabwe in 2009 and ran a window-tinting business.

On Wednesday, Chimboza testified he stabbed Mbuyiselo Manona, 62, to death in self-defence at the Gugulethu home of a female client on 10 June.

He said Manona had been belligerent for no reason and attacked him without warning when his client had left to buy alcohol.

He rejected the State’s claim that he had eaten Manona’s heart and said the blood on his face had been from a gash to the head and Manona’s spurting wounds.
– SAPA

Johannesburg – While an investigation into complaints against drink-and-drive High Court Judge Nkola Motata are on hold, he continues to stay at home and earn a monthly salary, the Star reported on Monday.

Lusanda Ntuli of the office of the Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said Motata had not been released from service.

“He is still receiving a monthly salary,” Ntuli said.

The Judicial Conduct Tribunal probing a complaint of racism against Motata was postponed in February pending a challenge to legislation relating to the tribunal.

The section of the act being challenged empowered the tribunal’s president to appoint a National Prosecuting Authority official to collect evidence on the tribunal’s behalf.

The tribunal was to probe Motata’s conduct after he crashed his car into the wall of businessman Richard Baird’s Johannesburg property in January 2007. Motata was found guilty of drunk driving in 2009.

He allegedly said while drunk: “No boer is going to undermine me; this used to be the white man’s land but it isn’t anymore.”

He also allegedly told a metro policeman not to support a white man.

He went to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to stop the JSC from probing the complaint about his remarks, but his application was unsuccessful.
– SAPA

Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma is healthy and continues with his work, he said in an interview posted online.

“There is no problem. I am as healthy as anything,” Zuma said in an interview clip on the My ANC channel on YouTube posted earlier in July.

“In fact my doctors have been saying young people are going to envy you if they knew how healthy you are…I am healthy, and I am working.”

He said people were speculating about his health.

“I read in newspapers about how sick I am and what diseases are in me. I was shocked that that may be another Jacob Zuma, not this one.”

Exhaustion

After the May general elections, Zuma was exhausted and doctors had ordered him to take some rest, he said.

“Doctors took a very good decision that I should take it easy, and that is what I have done.”

Last month, Zuma spent a weekend in hospital.

At the time, African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe said Zuma, 72, went for a routine health check and was exhausted from election campaigning.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa stood in for Zuma.

The ANC said its election campaign had been punishing and all senior members of the party would take time off one after another to “re-energise”.

Zuma is currently in Brazil for a Brics summit, and also watched the final of the 2014 Soccer World Cup.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – A surge in child-on-child sexual assault cases has been noted by both NGOs and government’s social development department, it was reported on Monday.
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Durban – The National Prosecuting Authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit has been paralysed by the vicious leadership battle in its uppermost ranks, and losing the fight against well-heeled drug barons is collateral damage.
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Johannesburg – Murder-accused paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s latest tweets were not in contempt of court, a media lawyer said on Monday.

“There is no prohibition on Oscar making public statements, whether via Twitter or otherwise,” Dario Milo said.

“He is perfectly entitled to do so and there can be no suggestion that he is in contempt of court. In any event, his comments on Twitter have nothing at all to do with the case.”

Pistorius, who is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, on Sunday tweeted a Bible verse, a collage of pictures of his humanitarian work, and an extract from Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning.

Frankl, who died in 1997, was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and a Holocaust survivor.

Brokenhearted

The text reads in part: “…The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

“In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honourable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfilment.”

The verse from the Bible, Psalm 34:18 reads: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted”.

Last week, the defence closed its case in Pistorius’s murder trial in the North Gauteng High Court. Final arguments are expected to be heard on 7 August.

The paralympian claims he shot Steenkamp by accident through the locked door of his toilet in his Pretoria home on 14 February last year. He believed she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him.

The State alleges he killed her during an argument.

Pistorius underwent a month-long psychiatric evaluation at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital, after which the court heard he did not suffer from general anxiety disorder, as testified by a psychiatrist in his defence.

– SAPA

Pretoria – Former police minister Nathi Mthethwa has started testifying on the role of the SA Police Service during the Marikana strike, at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Monday.

Mthethwa’s evidence pertains to his role in police interventions during the strike by Lonmin miners in the North West in August 2012.

In his sworn statement to the inquiry, Mthethwa, who is now arts and culture minister, expressed sadness to families who lost members at Marikana, and South Africa in general.

“My conduct throughout the Marikana incident was underpinned by the principles of constitutional segregation of the role of the minister of police from that of the national commissioner of police,” he said.

“I took steps to ensure that I was kept informed about the political developments as they unfolded at Marikana and the concerns raised with me relating thereto.”

‘Mthethwa gave political support’

In March last year, Mthethwa’s leadership role before and after the 16 August shootings were questioned at the inquiry when national police commissioner Riah Phiyega was cross-examined by then evidence leader Mbuyiseli Madlanga SC.

Madlanga asked what specific support Mthethwa gave Phiyega at Marikana on 16 August, when police shot dead 34 striking miners, apparently while trying to disperse and disarm them.

Phiyega said: “He gave us political support.”

Madlanga responded: “Am I right to say you cannot be specific on the political direction, nor can you be specific on the political support you received from the police minister?”

Madlanga said Phiyega’s evidence did not suggest any initiative by the minister.

“What, if anything, did the minister of police do about the killings at Marikana?” Madlanga asked.
Phiyega responded: “My minister was personally here. The minister was part of the inter-ministerial committee that did a lot of work in the commission… In his political role he gave us political support.”

However, Madlanga said he wanted to know what the minister did prior to the 16 August killings.

Once again, Phiyega referred him to her statement, adding that Mthethwa gave her and her operational team support, though he was not involved in operations.

Mthethwa informed through normal reporting

The commission heard it was necessary for Phiyega to inform Mthethwa about the “killing of human beings that are of an unusually high scale”.

Phiyega said she kept Mthethwa informed in her “normal reporting” to him about what was happening at Marikana through phone calls and internal notices and statements.

Madlanga tried to establish whether Phiyega had called Mthethwa by midnight on 13 August about the five people killed at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana. She kept referring him to her statement.

Phiyega said: “In my statements I mentioned dates and I have said that I continuously gave updates to the minister.”

Madlanga responded: “General, this is a simple question… Did you inform the minister by midnight on 13 August of the five killings?”

Speaking softly, Phiyega said: “I informed the minister on what happened at Marikana since the ninth. I can’t remember if I called him at 12 midnight on 13 August.”

Mthethwa was police minister when 34 people, mostly striking Lonmin mineworkers, were shot dead in a clash with police on 16 August 2012.

More than 70 were wounded, and another 250 arrested at the company’s platinum mining operations in Marikana, near Rustenburg.

In the preceding week, 10 people, including two policemen and the two security guards, were killed.

The commission is investigating the 44 deaths during the strike-related violence.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to testify at the inquiry later this month.

– SAPA