Tag: Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo

Black and white justice: Oscar Pistorius and the Xhosa King

The question of whether Oscar Pistorius is a murderer or not will now be argued in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) following the successful application by the State to have his culpable homicide conviction reviewed.

Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down her ruling in the High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday.

Pistorius was sentenced to five years in prison for the Valentine’s Day shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

But the State just can’t explain why DA-darling Xhosa King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo has for five years managed to avoid a 15-year jail sentence for culpable homicide, while the State dithers over what to do about him.

SCA sources have confirmed that no appeal papers were filed by either side in the case. As there’s no appeal, Dalindyebo should have started serving his 15-year sentence, but he remains free.

“We are still dealing with the matter. We are unable to divulge any details at this point,” Nathi Mncube, national spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), said last week.

“It will be resolved soon.”

The Star had asked again why Dalindyebo wasn’t in jail, following the collapse of an appeal in the matter in early August.

He was convicted in 2009 of culpable homicide, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, arson, kidnapping and attempting to defeat the ends of justice, relating to disciplinary actions he ordered against his subjects in 1995 and 1996.

He was sentenced to an effective 15 years in jail.

Dalindyebo never filed appeal papers with the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), and in early August, the Department of Justice said the appeal had lapsed as he was now out of time.

He was expected to go to jail, but didn’t.

At the same time, the NPA explained the lack of action against Dalindyebo by saying it had also appealed against the culpable homicide conviction. But the NPA also never filed any appeal papers.

Dalindyebo openly admits to smoking dagga and has been accused of assaults, including on relatives.

Clearly the prosecutor in the Pistorius case loved the international media attention he was getting by attacking the famous white athlete. Gerrie Nel complained that the mercy shown Oscar Pistorius was “over-exaggerated”.

Nel called the sentence “shockingly inappropriate”, openly playing to the race-baiters.

“It’s like taking someone charged with murder and then convicting him on, say, public violence. It cannot be,” Nel ranted, while appealing the acquittal on murder of Pistorius.

Zille defends drug user DA King

The King's drug of choice still illegal
The King’s drug of choice still illegal

DA leader Helen Zille has defended the party’s controversial decision to accept abaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo as a member, and said he would only forfeit his membership if he lost his appeal against his conviction on charges that include culpable homicide.

The decision – which has been widely criticised as expedient and lampooned by cartoonists – had been a “pragmatic” one, Zille said.

The king’s announcement of his intention to join the DA had taken the party by surprise and confronted it with the choice of accepting or rejecting him in public.

Responding “below the radar” had not been an option since the king had broadcast his plan to join the party and issued a public invitation for it to sign him up, Zille wrote in her SA Today newsletter on Monday.

She and DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip had discussed the situation and decided to give Dalindyebo the opportunity to “reconsider” after informing him of the “implications of joining the DA”.

Trollip had gone to see him and spelled out the DA principles and opposition to the Traditional Courts Bill.

Trollip had made it clear that if the Appeal Court upheld Dalindyebo’s criminal conviction, he would lose his DA membership.

Dalindyebo is appealing against his conviction on charges including arson, kidnapping, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and culpable homicide.

UCT law professor Pierre de Vos pointed out in his blog that the DA constitution said a member of the party automatically loses that membership if convicted of any offence listed in Schedule 1, 2, 5, 6 or 7 of the Criminal Procedure Act – and stressed that this included culpable homicide, kidnapping and assault “when a dangerous wound is inflicted”.

Previously, the DA had called for President Jacob Zuma, when he was the deputy president, to be fired when his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was convicted, despite Zuma himself not having been convicted of any offence.

But Zille said the DA had welcomed Dalindyebo because no one else who joined the party as an ordinary member was subject to an ideology test or “due diligence” investigation.

Politics involved converting opponents, “not creating impenetrable barriers to entry” and the party’s “core mandate” was to win more votes in order to win elections “so that we can implement our policies, to better serve all South Africans”.

This was “politics in the real world”, or “realpolitik”, and time would tell whether it had been the right choice. – IOL