Tag: custody

Mandela grandson charged with rape

President Nelson Mandela’s grandson remains in police custody after the rape case against him was postponed in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court on Monday.

The 24-year-old Mbuso Mandela is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, and was arrested at the weekend after the victim opened the rape case against him.

It’s alleged the teenager went to the toilet at a pub in Greenside earlier this month when he grabbed her and raped her inside one of the cubicles.

The police has confirmed that he remains in custody and the case was remanded to Friday for a formal bail application.

In June, another one of Mandela’s grandsons, Mandla, received a suspended sentence in the Mthatha Magistrates Court.

The Mvezo chief was previously found guilty of assaulting a local teacher in a road rage incident in 2013.

Mandla had been convicted of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, an offence that could result in a jail term, but he has been granted leave to appeal his assault conviction.

Did Gray intentionally injure himself?

A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate’s safety.

The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner’s version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe.

Gray was found unconscious in the wagon when it arrived at a police station on April 12. The 25-year-old had suffered a spinal injury and died a week later, touching off waves of protests across Baltimore, capped by a riot Monday in which hundreds of angry residents torched buildings, looted stores and pelted police officers with rocks.

Meanwhile City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby says Freddie Gray received his critical injuries in Baltimore police custody and has charged all six officers involved in his death.

The state medical examiner’s office turned over Gray’s autopsy on Friday morning, a day after the police turned over their investigation into Gray’s death.

Source: Washington Post

Vnukovo crash: Custody demanded for snowplow driver

A court in Moscow is set to consider on Thursday an appeal from investigators asking to extend a custody term for Vladimir Martynenko, an operator of a snowplow that caused a tragic crash in which Total’s CEO Christophe de Margerie, two pilots and a flight attendant, all of them French citizens, died in the crash.

Officials from the Russian Investigative Committee demanded the detention of the snowplow driver until December 21, saying that if he is not held, he could warn “other participants in the crime.”

During the takeoff at Moscow airport Vnukovo on Monday night, the four-seat Dassault Falcon business jet, en route to Paris, collided with a snowplow, caught fire and fell onto the runway.

Following the incident Martynenko was detained for the period of 48 hours, which expire on Thursday. Martynenko, who emerged unhurt from the incident, was reportedly under alcoholic influence, while he himself acknowledged that he had a cup of coffee with cognac in it before his shift.

A criminal case has been opened in Russia into the violation of traffic safety and operation of the plane. Russian Prosecutor General Yury Chaika personally oversees the investigation.

Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee, said earlier on Thursday that Four staff members of Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport were detained on suspicion of their duties’ negligence in regard to the Falcon-300 private jet crash.

The detained are chief engineer of the airport’s service Vladimir Ledenev, who was in charge of snow-clearing works at the time of the incident, flights director Roman Dunayev, intern air traffic controller Svetlana Krivsun and airport’s chief air traffic controller Alexander Kruglov, who was in charge of the air traffic at the time of the tragic crash.

The head and deputy-head of Vnukovo Airport have also resigned, the airport’s press service announced.

“Due to tragic events on the night of October 20 to 21, the head of the Vnukovo International Airport Andrey Diakov and deputy head, Lieutenant-General of Aviation in Reserve Sergey Solntsev, have resigned. The resignations have been accepted,” said a statement.