Bloemfontein – praag.org

Land invasions: Mayor meets illegal occupants

Mangaung Executive Mayor, Thabo Manyoni on Tuesday met with representatives of the community of Botshabelo regarding illegal land occupation and invasion.

A portion of Botshabelo section H was not properly allocated to residents. Manyoni said the land invasion was against procedures of the city and needed to be rectified urgently.

He added that he will not allow people to stay or occupy any piece of land that is not serviced and does not conform with the basic requirements for living standards. He says the issue of land is a serious matter that needs to be treated carefully hence the municipality will not allow any lawlessness around it.

At the same time he urged members of the community not to be coerced into occupying land that is not approved but rather to work closely with the city to address the sensitive matter of land.

Farmers in Sasolburg are meanwhile meeting with Free State MEC for Police, Roads and Transport Butana Khompela and the provincial police commisioner, Simon Mpembe in Sasolburg.

The meeting will revolve around rural safety and illegal land occupations. The meeting will take place at 11:00 at the municipal offices in Fichardt street, in the Council Foyer on the second floor.

Source: OFM

White boy saves drowing man while black lifeguards look on

The girlfriend of a man who suffered a near drowning at Bloemfontein’s Maselspoort Resort yesterday says if it wasn’t for a heroic matric at the scene, her boyfriend would be dead.

The woman, who has requested to remain anonymous, says her boyfriend hit his head while riding the supertube at the resort. She says the black lifeguard on duty failed to respond rapidly when her boyfriend had difficulties in the pool at the end of the slide and adds when he did react, he was unable to locate the victim.

She says a white matric boy, Branden Terblanche, 18, saved the day by finding her boyfriend and retrieving him from the water. Bystanders with emergency response training then assisted while a different lifeguard provided respiratory aid until paramedics arrived.

Bloemfontein resident Terblanche, who wrote matric last year, says he does not know the victim but reacted immediately to the woman’s shouts. He was on his way up to the top of the slide but rushed down to pull the unconscious man from the pool.

The woman says her boyfriend is in a serious but stable condition in the High Care Unit at Pelonomi Hospital.

She says the near drowning has left his lungs flooded with moisture which puts him at risk of suffering what is known as a dry drowning. He is being monitored and is expected to remain in hospital for the next two to three days.

Free State coup suspect agrees to a plea bargain

One of the accused in a rightwing coup plot case has agreed to a plea bargain, the Bloemfontein High Court heard on Wednesday.

During the appearance of Mark Trollip, 48, and Johan Hendrik Prinsloo, 49, prosecutor Torie Pretorius read the details of a plea and sentencing agreement between the State and Trollip.

He and Prinsloo face charges of high treason and conspiracy to commit terrorist acts for their involvement in plans to bomb the ANC’s national conference in Mangaung last December.

In terms of the plea and sentence agreement, Trollip would plead guilty on the conspiracy charge and the State would withdraw the high treason charge.

Pretorius said one of the reasons taken into account with the plea agreement was that no lives were lost and no damage was done. The accused also could not obtain any weapons for the execution of their plans.

According to the charge sheet, Trollip and Prinsloo planned to acquire weaponry such as AK-47, R1 and R4 rifles to execute the coup.

Pretorius said Trollip, who was the self-proclaimed leader of the organisation Wit Brandwag, expressed remorse and was willing to co-operate with the police after his arrest.

Some of the plans were unrealistic, but the State felt that if the accused were successful, many lives would have been lost and caused racial tension.

Under the plea agreement, Trollip would serve a prison sentence of eight years. Trollip is represented by Kenny Pretorius. – Sapa

E-toll on its way after Zuma signs act into law

President Jacob Zuma has signed into law the Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill — paving the way for e-tolling, the presidency said on Wednesday.

“The president… has, in terms of Section 84 (2) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, signed the Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill into law,” said spokesman Mac Maharaj.

“In effect, the act will provide more effectively for the collection of toll; to amend the Cross-Border Road Transport Act, 1998 (Act No 4 of 1998), to empower the Cross-Border Road Transport Agency to collect toll on behalf of Sanral….”

The law in effect gives the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) the nod to put into effect e-tolling on Gauteng’s freeways.

The signing came on the same day that the Supreme Court of Appeal was hearing argument in an attempt by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) to stop e-tolling in Gauteng.

The court was told that legislation allowed Sanral to explore options other than tolling to fund Gauteng’s freeways.

It also heard that Sanral should, therefore, have kept an open mind about the matter, despite the Cabinet’s approval of electronic tolling.

“Even bound by the Cabinet decision, they still had to follow the procedures of the act,” said Mike Maritz, for Outa.

He argued that the Sanral Act allowed Sanral to explore other funding options. Sanral should have considered this and should not have been bound by Cabinet’s decision that the project be funded with public money through e-tolling.

The High Court in Pretoria had granted Outa leave to appeal against a previous judgment, handed down in December, dismissing its bid to have the e-tolls scrapped.

Judge Fritz Brand asked whether Sanral should have ignored Cabinet’s decision.

Maritz said Sanral should have kept an open mind and taken all options into consideration.

Last week, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project would be implemented in 2013, but that a starting date had not been determined.

The e-tolls have been challenged by political parties and the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu).

In April 2012, the High Court in Pretoria granted Outa an interdict approving a full judicial review before electronic tolling could be put into effect.

The interdict prevented Sanral from levying or collecting e-tolls, pending the outcome of a review. Sanral and the National Treasury appealed the court order.

In September last year, the Constitutional Court set aside the interim order, and in December, the High Court in Pretoria dismissed the application.

The court granted Outa leave on January 25 this year to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. – Sapa

Afrikaner activist Hein Boonzaaier walks free as state withdraws charges

Mr. Hein Boonzaaier, one of the accused in the so-called “Bloemfontein 4 terrorism case” has just walked free from the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court, with the state withdrawing all charges against him. After eight months of investigations, the state could not find evidence of wrongdoing against the blogger and activist.

Over the last few years Mr. Boonzaaier had visited the United States twice, also attending an American Renaissance conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. According to him, he was seen to be guilty “by association” in having sought support for the Afrikaner cause among US conservatives.

On 16 December 2012, the Day of the Vow for Afrikaners, Mr. Boonzaaier was out in his garden walking his beloved dog, an indigenous Boerboel bitch. He lives in Centurion, a suburb of Pretoria.

“It was exactly a quarter to eight in the morning,” he said. “The next moment there appeared 30 heavily armed policemen in full-body armour and with automatic weapons trained on me. I had no idea what was going on and did not know whether it was some kind of joke or whether I should run away.”

In an open letter published Monday in Afrikaans elsewhere on the PRAAG site, he explained how both his dog and his wife were threatened too, with the sub-machine guns being waved about. The heavily armed police had two warrants: one to search his house and another to arrest him for high treason.

He had to spend two months in prison before he was let out on bail. The state opposed his bail application, as well as those of the three other accused, Johan Prinsloo, Mark Trollip and Martin Keevy.

According to his legal team, “he should never have been arrested”. Boonzaaier stated: “I think it purely revolved around an attempt to discredit me, a goal in which the state and the media have amply succeeded.”

Trial by media

boonzaaier_hein2 — Boonzaaier photographed in Mississippi, proudly wearing a new acquisition

Mr. Boonzaaier’s day job is that of financial consultant. Both South Africa’s powerful Naspers media group and the left-wing Mail & Guardian newspaper castigated him with a “trial by media” during which he was vilified as a “right-wing extremist”, “coup plotter” and so on.

According to Boonzaaier there was an attempt to fabricate evidence against him by distorting statements he had made in the USA so that “it would sound as if he had said exactly the opposite of what he had said in reality”.

Before his arrest, Boonzaaier was involved in the formation of a new political party, the Federal Freedom Party, aiming to contest elections in 2014 in South Africa. He was elected as president of the new party. “My attempt to participate in democratic politics was, however, answered with a ham-fisted, wrongful arrest,” he said.

Boonzaaier is of the opinion that the order to arrest him came from within the ruling ANC. “The most bizarre thing was that the National Prosecuting Authority, which is an independent body in terms of the South African constitution, did not want to release me, despite there being no proper charge or evidence against me. Only when the minister agreed to it, was I finally released. South Africa is becoming more and more like Zimbabwe where the criminal justice system is controlled by politicians within the ruling party.”

“I think it was all part of a plan to discredit our political party, apart from it being directed against me personally. I got the impression that the government did not want me to take part in politics,” Boonzaaier said.

The case against his three fellow accused is continuing. Mr. Martin Keevy was previously declared “psychologically unfit to stand trial“, something which the state prosecutor is disputing. So Keevy has now been referred back to the Bloemfontein psychiatric institution which examined him in the first place for a second observation period of 30 days.

S. African child porn ring: more people investigated

Police are investigating another 44 people with possible links to an international child pornography ring, and have obtained at least 30 search warrants so far, a spokesman said on Friday.

“We did an investigation on 50 suspects… we then obtained 30 search warrants early in August,” said Lt-Gen Solomon Makgale.

“We executed those warrants and that’s how we arrested those six. The six are part of the 50.”

Police had followed up on a tip-off from Interpol last Thursday and arrested six men in four provinces for possession of child porn.

The accused were arrested in Lichtenburg, Bloemfontein, White River, Douglasdale, Florida, and Potchefstroom.

They were a teacher, a retired school principal, a headmaster, a lawyer, a dermatologist, and a businessman.

Since the arrests, they had appeared in various South African courts separately and had their cases postponed.

Makgale said police were trying to obtain the remaining 20 search warrants.

He could not confirm a report in The Times that among the alleged paedophiles were top executives of banks, insurance firms, legal practices, and IT companies.

On Wednesday, the newspaper reported the case had links to Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Western Europe, and Australasia.

It reported that children as young as five were believed to have been groomed to have sex with each other and adults. – Sapa

Young black man stabbed to death in Bloemfontein

A 19-year-old man was stabbed to death in Bloemfontein, Free State police said on Monday.

Zenzile Nqolo and Thabang Mohata were attacked by a group of men, who demanded their cellphones and wallets, when they left a local tavern on Saturday, said Captain Chaka Marope.

“It is alleged that Nqolo, in his attempt to fight back, was overpowered by the men and in [the] process sustained severe stab wounds,” said Marope.

Mohata escaped and alerted police, who were patrolling nearby. – Sapa

Martin Keevy ‘not fit to stand trial’ in treason case

Martin Keevy comforting his wife upon hearing that he has been refused bail

One of four rightwingers accused of plotting to murder senior ANC leaders is not fit to stand trial, his lawyer said on Friday.

Martin Keevy, 49, of Bloemfontein appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on charges of treason and conspiracy to plan acts of terrorism.

Marius Bruwer, for Keevy, said a unanimous psychiatric report from the Free State Psychiatric Complex found he lacked criminal accountability and was unfit to stand trial.

Prosecutor Torie Pretorius told magistrate Andries Schoeman the State disputed the contents of the report and asked for a further 30-day postponement for a re-evaluation.

“The State does not agree with the conclusions of the report,” Pretorius said.

Bruwer did not oppose the application.

Keevy was admitted to the complex again on Friday, where the State’s experts would re-evaluate him. He would be back in court on August 16.

The State alleges that Keevy, Mark Trollip, Johan Prinsloo, and Hein Boonzaaier were part of a group who plotted to kill African National Congress leaders at the party’s Mangaung elective conference in December 2012. They allegedly called this “Die Slag van Mangaung” (The Battle of Mangaung).

Keevy, Trollip, and Prinsloo were denied bail, while Boonzaaier was granted R80,000 bail.

Trollip, Prinsloo, and Boonzaaier were expected to appear in court again on August 23. – Sapa

South African cabinet denounces ‘recent acts of racism’

Recent acts of racism in the country should be strongly condemned, Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane said on Thursday.

In a statement following Wednesday’s fortnightly Cabinet meeting, Chabane said this should especially be stamped out in school classrooms.

“There is no room for racism in our country and democracy, let alone in our schools, where the values of our Constitution ought to be promoted and defended.”

He called on South Africans to work with government to deal with racism.

“Cabinet commends the department of basic education for its quick action in dealing with racism in schools and encourages all parents, pupils, and teachers to report racism and abuse at schools.”

In a Grade Seven classroom at the Wilgehof Primary School, in Bloemfontein, the old South African flag was reportedly on display, along with a picture of expelled ANCYL leader Julius Malema alongside that of a monkey.

The history and life orientation teacher allegedly responsible for the display and for making racist remarks, as well as the principal, have been suspended.

One of the white parents at the school had also laid a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) — who had already been to the school for an on-site inspection.

While investigating, the SAHRC learnt that some pupils had been called derogatory names. – Sapa

Zuma victory is in the bag

President Jacob Zuma’s supporters should focus on life after Mangaung because his victory at the ANC national conference was “sealed”, Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini boldly claimed in Durban on Sunday.

“It is obvious that Zuma will win at Mangaung. This victory is now sealed. But some people are already plotting to make his life a living hell after Mangaung. And if you lower your guard, those people will be ahead of you.”

Dlamini said Cosatu had taken a decision to support Zuma as president, Kgalema Motlanthe as deputy president and Gwede Mantashe as secretary-general.

He admitted that Cosatu leaders had been asked to engage Motlanthe so that he should not contest against Zuma, but said “that matter may have to resolve itself politically”.

Addressing the provincial shop stewards’ council, Dlamini said members of the ANC and Cosatu should be “combat-ready” to defend Zuma and Cosatu unions after Mangaung.

“We are faced with a serious problem where we are under attack from all quarters… We understand that the battle ahead will be tough. The ANC needs to be on its toes.”

Dlamini said the attack on Cosatu affiliates such as the National Union of Mineworkers was part of a bigger plot by some organisations and individuals who wanted to destroy the ANC. “They realise that the ANC keeps on winning the elections, but they want to take over, so now they are trying to destroy the ANC by destroying Cosatu first.”

Dlamini applauded the ANC members who blocked DA leader Helen Zille’s visit to Nkandla.

He said some organisations like the Friends of the Youth League had exploited some genuine demands by the workers for their own gains.

Themba Mthembu, the provincial secretary of the SACP, agreed, saying there was an “antimajoritarian offensive” being waged by parties like the DA against the ANC-led government.

“This hate campaign seeks to undermine the majority rule and the privileges that should be reaped by the majority party.”

Also speaking at the gathering, Senzo Mkhize, a member of the provincial executive committee of the ANC, was also confident Zuma would win at Mangaung, saying that he would be the one delivering the January 8 statement next year. “We will come back from Mangaung with a Zuma moment.”

Mkhize was at pains to explain that the province was not backing Zuma because he was a Zulu.

He said there had been many achievements under the Zuma-led ANC and government and that these included improving relations with alliance partners and providing clear leadership on the issue of HIV/Aids.

At the weekend, the eThekwini region also nominated ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa with regional chairman Sibongiseni Dhlomo, saying the ANC was spoilt for choice as it had many capable leaders who could fill the post.

Dhlomo said, however, the region would be willing to be “influenced” on its list of preferred candidates.

This is an indication that the pro-Zuma supporters can still back Motlanthe for re-election as deputy president, only if he does not contest the position of president.

The region also nominated Zweli Mkhize for the position of treasurer-general, Mantashe for secretary-general, Jessie Duarte for deputy secretary-general and Baleka Mbete for national chairwoman.

Meanwhile, the provincial nominations conference of the ANC Youth League could not decide on its preferred leaders at a meeting on Saturday after a quorum could not be reached. – Daily News

Alyssa Botha (13)’s killer was member of secret ANC militia, released by police

Earlier today PRAAG reported on its Afrikaans website about a secret ANC youth militia being trained at South African military bases and deployed in black squatter camps. This afternoon it came to late that the murder last week on 13-year old Alyssa Botha was committed by a member of the secret militia, known as the “Task Desk”.

During the investigation about a second shooting on neighbours of the Botha family in Muldersdrift today, it came to light that the two subesequently arrested subjects had been involved in the murder on Alyssa. At least one of them was a member of the “Task Desk”, trained at the Tempe military base in Bloemfontein. He was however re-arrested as he had been released yesterday by the South African Police Service, together with four others, as reported earlier in Five suspects released in Alyssa Botha (13) murder case.

A source within the SAPS confirmed to PRAAG that two of the five suspects released yesterday committed the most recent attack on a neighbour of the Botha family that had been singled out last week. Apparently the same weapons were used, therefore police did not even bother to disarm the men.

The decision to release the suspects in the Alyssa Botha murder case, was taken by a black female officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Katlego Mogale. She claimed yesterday that police could find “no evidence” linking the suspects to Alyssa’s murder, despite one of them having a memory card belonging to one of the Botha girls on him.

The other three suspects are Zimbabweans, leading to the suspicion that they would have fled across the border by now.

The condition of the man shot by them yesterday is still unknown. He was taken to the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital.

Up to 93% of all homes in the Muldersdrift area have been attacked, probably as a result of militia activity. Most of the attacks have a black-on-white profile.

South African male nurse raped cancer patient

A male nurse who allegedly raped a terminally ill cancer patient in a Bloemfontein hospital will appear in the city’s magistrate court on Tuesday.

Last month, the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court postponed the matter for a final decision from the provincial office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

The postponement was due to the advocate handling the DPP’s case having been injured in a recent vehicle accident.

The 33-year-old nurse was arrested after a 50-year-old cancer patient alleged that she was raped during a night shift at the National Hospital.

The sick woman’s husband told police the attack happened on October 15.

The patient, who has since died, could not identify the female accomplice who allegedly helped the man.

According to the patient, a woman nurse held the woman down while a male nurse raped her.

The man is out on bail.