Welkom – The case against a local soapie actress and an accomplice who allegedly defrauded a businessman in Welkom, in the Free State, was postponed in the Welkom Magistrate’s Court, police said on Friday.

Nomathemba Mokeretla, who plays the role of a doctor in Muvhango, was granted R5 000 bail on Thursday, Captain Stephen Thakeng said.

Mokeretla, 34, would appear, along with Liteboho Sithole, 33, on September 18 on fraud charges.

“(Mokeretla) handed herself over to the Welkom police and appeared in court on Thursday,” Thakeng said.

In September 2011, the two women allegedly used a Welkom doctor’s trucks for their transport business and failed to pay him R300 000 he claimed they owed him, Thakeng said.

Sithole was arrested on November 29, 2011.

In July this year, the doctor saw Mokeretla on television while watching the soapie on SABC and alerted police. – Sapa

Pretoria – An HIV-positive mother who killed her four-year-old son by giving him Rattex mixed with yoghurt as she was down and out and without anyone to take care of her children has been given a lifeline with her 25-year jail sentence being drastically reduced.

Elizabeth Mazibuko was sentenced in the Nigel Regional Court in 2011, but she turned to the Pretoria High Court to appeal against the 25-year sentence.

Acting Judge Nicolene Janse van Nieuwenhuizen said the circumstances that gave rise to Mazibuko’s conviction were “extremely tragic”.
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Johannesburg – A foetus has been found at the Koedoeskloof rubbish dump in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape police said on Friday.

The foetus was found by a community member around 11.20am on Thursday, said Warrant Officer Gerda Swart.

“The community member made the discovery when she opened a plastic bag.”

A case of concealment of birth was being investigated.

Members of the public were urged to assist police with any information they might have.

Sapa

Johannesburg – The Pretoria High Court has granted an urgent interdict preventing the ANC in Lesedi, Gauteng, from marching to Hoër Volkskool Heidelberg on Friday, lobby group AfriForum said.

“It is unacceptable that the ANC is willing to exploit children to promote its own political agenda,” AfriForum deputy CEO Alana Bailey said in a statement.

“It is high time that the ruling party serves the interests of the new generation of South Africans instead of their own political agendas.”

Bailey said the urgent application, lodged by the school governing body, was heard by the court on Thursday. AfriForum supported the application.

Bailey said the African National Congress planned to march to the school while matriculants were writing preliminary examinations.

ANC Lesedi zonal chairman Ernest Dlamini said the party respected the court order.

“The reason we wanted to march was because the school expelled one African child and suspended 16 others. It was alleged that there was a fight between the black and white pupils,” he said.

In terms of the court order no protest action could take place until after September 23. Dlamini said the ANC would march after that date.

Sapa

Cape Town – A Grade 11 pupil at a Maitland school was found by fellow pupils in the toilets, her hands tied and mouth gagged.

She had apparently been sexually assaulted.

Bronagh Casey, spokeswoman for Education MEC Donald Grant, said it was unclear if the perpetrator came from within the school or from outside the premises.

Police spokesman Frederick van Wyk said

: “The girl is still traumatised and shocked and cannot speak to the investigating officer.”
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Bloemfontein – The State withdrew all charges against one of four alleged rightwing plotters in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

Hein Boonzaaier, 50, of Centurion, was asked by the magistrate to excuse himself from further court proceedings.

He was one of four men arrested in December last year for allegedly planning to assassinate senior ANC leaders in Mangaung.

Boonzaaier was out on bail of R80 000.

The case against two other accused, Johan Prinsloo and Mark Trollip, was postponed for trail in the Bloemfontein High Court on November 4.

Sapa

Cape Town – Leaders of Manenberg’s main gangs, the Hard Livings and the Americans, have apologised for the trauma their battles have caused residents and have vowed to stop settling their differences through the barrel of a gun.

Manenberg has been in the grip of gang violence for some months, with the loss of several lives and the Western Cape Department of Education closing schools for two days after teachers demanded that it take action. Schools reopened on August 19 after the City of Cape Town deployed 71 metro police officers to patrol the schools.
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Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma has applied for leave to appeal against a high court decision forcing the NPA to hand over the so-called spy tapes.

In court papers seen by Sapa on Friday, and dated on Wednesday, Zuma’s lawyers listed several grounds for appeal against the ruling by the High Court in Pretoria.

One was that the court erred in not finding that the transcripts of the tapes were part of Zuma’s representation and therefore did not have to be produced.

“The court [also] erred… in holding that the third respondent [Zuma] was obliged to factually demonstrate that he had an interest in the confidentiality of the ‘transcripts’.”

The application says the appeal could be heard by either a full bench of the high court or the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).

The tape transcripts and other documents relate to a National Prosecuting Authority decision to drop corruption charges against Zuma.

Last Friday, the court ordered acting national director of public prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba to lodge a copy of the tapes with the registrar of the court within five days.

The ruling by Judge Rami Mathopo followed an application by the Democratic Alliance.

In April 2009, then acting NPA head Mokotedi Mpshe withdrew the fraud and corruption charges against Zuma.

In March last year the SCA ordered the NPA to lodge the record with the registrar of the high court. The NPA refused to do so on the basis that it contained confidential representations by Zuma.

Mathopo ordered Jiba to comply with the SCA order and ruled that the record to be lodged include a copy and transcripts of the electronic recordings Mpshe referred to in his announcement that charges were being withdrawn.

The appeal papers stated that the court erred in accepting that the transcripts were not confidential and that the production of any item which was part of the representations was compelled by the order of the SCA.

“The court erred in holding that… [Zuma] was obliged to make out a case that the representations made on his behalf were confidential — it was common cause before the SCA and this court that… the representations were not subject to compelled disclosure.”

It also erred by holding that minutes, which would reveal the content of the representation, were not excluded from the record, but required a legal claim of confidentiality to be established by Zuma.

The DA said on Friday the arguments by Zuma’s legal team were “unlikely to hold water”.

“The application for leave to appeal argues that the court ‘erred’ on basically every point in the judgment,” DA federal executive chairman James Selfe said in a statement.

“It is time to stop delaying and just comply with the courts. President Zuma’s legal team is delaying the inevitable and at each stage at the cost of the taxpayer.”

He said the DA had submitted parliamentary questions to determine the exact cost to the public “of President Zuma trying to hide the truth from South Africa”.

“The DA will oppose this application vigorously, because South Africa deserves to know, once and for all, whether the decision by the NPA to drop the charges against President Jacob Zuma was politically motivated,” he said.

“All we can say to President Zuma’s legal team is bring it on.” – Sapa

Cape Town – A proposal to extend university courses by a year would see an additional 28 percent of students graduate.

A Council for Higher Education report released this week revealed shockingly low university graduation numbers.

Just 50 percent of students graduated and less than 5 percent of young African and coloured people succeeded in tertiary education, it said.

A task team appointed by the council had proposed a flexible curriculum structure in which courses would be extended by a year to give students the academic and social foundation needed to succeed.
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Pietermaritzburg – Muggers better watch out; women are not weak and easy targets to be messed with.

A mugger learnt this lesson the hard way when he attempted to steal a cellphone from a woman in Church Street in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday afternoon.

The act was caught on the CCTV cameras monitored by Safe City. They did not need to intervene much as a group of surrounding woman took justice into their own hands.

Lucas Holtzhausen of Safe City and his staff were amused at the justice that was dished out by the women.

Kicked in private parts

“An unfortunate male suspect tried to steal a woman’s cellphone. He ran up to her and tried to grab it. She screamed and at least 10 women came to help her. The guy didn’t know where to turn. One lady came from behind and kicked him right in his private parts. He got it from all sides. Luckily there were some traffic wardens nearby who ‘rescued’ him, but the women did not stop, they kept following him,” said Holtzhausen.

While the traffic wardens kept the suspect from the wrath of the sizeable group of women, Safe City dispatched police to the scene.

Police spokesperson Joey Jeevan said they had received a report of a fight along Church Street in the Pietermaritzburg CBD on Wednesday. “A traffic officer arrested a 21-year-old male suspect at the scene. It is believed that the man robbed a female victim of her cellular phone and she immediately began shouting for assistance. Instantly, community members apprehended the man and began assaulting him.”

The woman whose phone was stolen did not want to open a case and the man was later released.

Holtzhausen feels that this is poetic justice since it is Women’s Month: “The moral of this story? All men please beware, it is Women’s Month!”

On Wednesday, The Witness reported that robbers who targeted two women in the Pietermaritzburg CBD where caught by two body builders and were made to hand back their loot.

– The Witness