Thursday, July 29, 2010

Macabre madness

There is something macabre about sitting in court and listening to graphic details of murder from men who, when they are done, are perfectly free and entitled to step of the stand and come and sit in the gallery. Right next to you. If that's what they feel like doing.
And that is pretty much how things have been this week with the start of the Brett Kebble murder trial. We journalists covering the saga have been sitting for hours, listening to hitmen talk about how they were contracted to take guys out in a non-gay romance kind of way.
All of them have immunity for prosecution if they simply are "frank and honest with the court". That's all. So here you have people who have literally blown other people's brains out just telling how and why they did it so that Glenn Agliotti goes down for the murder and they get to walk away scot free.
We've had some quite clear descriptions from Mikey Schultz, for example, on how he aimed his gun at Kebble (who wanted to die so badly he apparently chased them round the neighbourhood when they aborted their first murder mission because his wife's car engine was overheating), watched Kebble look at him and then stare ahead and raise his shoulder a little in a protective motion before Schultz pumped him full of bullets.
Some absolutely amazing revelations: security man Clint Nassif who ruled the roost and took payments in the millions for setting his henchmen loose actually has only a standard six education.
A few glimpses of humanity: Schultz turned down an offer to go and chat to Brett and actually meet him on grounds that it would be uncomfortable because he would have to shoot him dead later.
Some gob-smacking info on the tactical workings of hitmen: Nigel McGurk on how he disposed of Stephen Mildenhall's property after their connections shot him a bunch of time in the shoulders to keep him away from the office for a couple of months. Apparently he and his friend Kappie broke Mildenhall's credit and bank cards into pieces and then chucked them out the window while driving from Cape Town back to Joburg. At one point they stopped and made a fire on the side of the road to burn the wallet.
Ja - like some unbelievable parallel universe.
And then while that was all going down some guy in Mpumalanga lost his tiger while taking it to the vet. So for 48 hours there was a big hunt for a big cat on the go.
Too bizarre for words.
But on the plus side, I am now on leave!!!
Two more sleeps and Little One and I board a plane for Australia.
Woooo hooooooooooo!
Oh ja - they found the tiger last night.

1 comment:

  1. It must be really surreal to listen to people talk like that... the kind of talk you only hear in gangster movies...

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