Bored stiff

The ongoing trial of the judge who crashed his car while allegedly driving drunk has been dragging on for 18 months. So it was with immense anticipation and excitement that the usual clan of journalists arrived in court this morning. We had been told that today the defence was going to lodge an appeal to have the entire case chucked out.
So, after covering numerous long hearings, we were ready for a new development. Something was going to happen. At last.
And then we were told that the matter was delayed for an hour. Disappointed but not crushed, we stuck to our seats and waited. The TV reporters competed to see who had the worst working conditions. SABC, we heard, had undergone so many cut backs that they no longer even got coffee at work. At e-TV the editors were so controlling that reporters were reduced to little more than robots reading completely rewritten scripts. A news agency journo sat quietly and read her book: "10 stupid things married women say and do". Fabulous Shoes (red spiky heels so sharp and high they hurt my eyes) crunched on Nik Naks. I took a crack at a fiendish Sudoko puzzle.
After almost three hours the action started, and then fizzled out almost as quickly. Defence advocate said he wasn't going to present his application to have the whole case chucked out anymore. He wasn't going to do anything and he was not prepared to say why.
The magistrate bristled. He looked annoyed and asked for a further explanation. Defence guy said he was using attorney client privilege as his reason for not making his reasons known. Magistrate asked the prosecutor if he was cool with this. Prosecutor said he had been kept in the loop, did not plan to oppose the request for another week's delay, and that he too was not going to tell the magistrate the big secret why.
And so it got postponed. Again. Til next week Monday. Talk about Groundhog Day!!
Speculation is that the judge has not been paying his lawyers and they are now fed up and ready to withdraw. I don't know if it's true, but its the only thing that makes sense to me.

Julius and the evil spirits

Working on a Sunday when everyone else you know is out there in the sunshine having fun is a dreary, tiresome affair.But every now and again something comes along to lift your spirits – like the e-mail sent so kindly by the African Christian Democratic Party today. They issued a press statement announcing their decision to “have a special prayer for Julius Woodwork Malema”.

It was a fantastic announcement, truly in line with all the bizarre electioneering currently on the go, ahead of next month’s elections.

This religious political party apparently now believes youth league leader Julius has been possessed by evil spirits. Apart from his now-legendary poor performance in matric (H for maths, G for woodwork), Malema has annoyed the ACDP with his arrogance and his “glorification of thuggery”.

The ACDP is now angry and hellbent on reforming the wayward youth. They are extreme, enthusiastic, they use astounding vocabulary, bad grammar and poor spelling in their latest missive. I quote, or rather copy and paste: “The only leasson our children have learnt from he of the displeasing metric results is to take pride in insulting their own parents and elderly people. Alas. As the ACDP we can no loneger ignore or even tolerate this dangerous conduct. If we don't pray for him not only would we be doing him and the nation a disfavor; we would be neglecting our spiritual and moral obligations as Christians.”

Do these people not have a spell checker?

And they continue: “We believe that only a man under the spell of the evil spirits which once attacked Legion of Gaderines can spew the kind of things coming out of Malema's mouth, yet never lose any amount of sleep. We now have good reasons to suspect that those evil spirits have left the pigs and have found a new home in the young man. We therefore call upon all Christians and citizens to join us in praying for Malema so that these spirits could leave him in peace. Although very little is know about Malema's late mother, we should also pray for her spirit to rest in peace in the wake of Malema's reign of madness.”

In the spirit of an organisation wanting to call a spade an evil, demon-possessed instrument of Satan, they end with a warning.

“The power to halt the likes of Malema and anyone who has displayed obvious obsession with oligarchy is in the hands of populace.”

Now who could have said it better?

Justice

Precisely 10 minutes before the official 10am start of this morning's sessions in the Johannesburg High Court we were alerted to the fact that a judgement was going to be given in yet another round of the Scorpions vs disgraced police chief Jackie Selebi. None of us on duty had been covering the ongoing saga and nobody knew what was going on. I drew the short straw, and got the assignment.
One of the news editors quickly printed out some background, I filled in a car slip and charged down to the basement where a driver was waiting. I closed my eyes in prayer as he did 0 to 100km's an hour through city traffic and dropped me off at the front entrance, mere seconds later.
The hearing itself was a tedious and boring as I expected. No big dramas.
As I tried to leave I encountered a whole stack of women in purple t-shirts protesting. They were standing in solidarity with a woman named Buyisiwe who was gang-raped by six men in 2005. Posters detailing each step in her stalling court case were tied to the palisade fencing in front of the court. It was a truly horrifying account and my heart went out to the poor soul.
The protestors however, unfortunately seemed to attract more curious stares than pledges of support. They were angry and loud. One sported a giant badge appropriately sporting the logo "Pissed Off Woman". Some had duct tape over their mouths. The main attraction was a woman with a shaved head in a white robe and leather sandals splattered with fake blood, lying on the steps leading up to the grand court entranceway. She had a bandage over her eyes with JUSTICE writted across it, presumably for those who didn't get who she was supposed to be. She had the scales of justice in one hand and a giant gold cardboard sword in the other.
This in itself would have been a fairly striking image. But she would shriek out: "Why is there no justice?" to anyone walking past, which scared quite a few people and had them stepping off smartly in alarm.
I truly hope the angry women eventually managed to achieve the point they were trying to make. And that justice will eventually be served for Buyisiwe.

A rich woman and bad boys.

Today was one big run around, following up on my two most recent stories.
First of all, I got to cover the bail application of the really rich woman who was arrested along with her hubbie and his dad for fraud, theft and money laundering. And at the same time they had their property, cars, bank accounts, companies and trusts altogether worth about R10-million seized. That's got to be annoying if you've been living it up and driving around in a Bentley Turbo and stuff!
So there they stood in the dock this morning, hardly looking like millionaires in their jeans and tracksuit tops after a night in the slammer. It turns out the woman - a one-time legal secretary turned lady of leisure - had allegedly been conning her boss into signing bunches of payments to various people which she would simply divert the amounts into her own account, her husband's, her father-in-law's bond account or whatever.
It took a while - apparently several months and about R1.4-million down the tube - before boss cottoned on, got himself an investigator and the whole family got busted. A quick look at everybody's healthy bank balances and sorry salary slips resulted in the long arm of the law snatching all their stuff and freezing it.
They got bail okay, but they now have a lot of please explaining to do to the cops. And then to the tax man!
No sooner was I back at the office than my phone rang. It was the mother of Donovan - he of the tattoo, gold tooth and bullet hole through the stomach story I did on Tuesday. She was still deeply distressed and now wanted to sue the state for Donovan's medical costs. She said her other son and Don's two friends who had all been arrested for attempted murder following the one-way street debacle had all been released before the case made it to court. She now wanted to sue for wrongful arrest. I felt sorry for her.
Then I received another call from a contact of mine who saw the story and recognised the names involved. The guys, he said, were serial housebreakers known in the area. The mother was kind of a Ma Baker character, living off the proceeds of her son's crimes.
I called the police for comment and they told the same story. The attempted murder charges had been dropped, but detectives were busy with investigations. The boys had apparently ripped off a big screen TV on their way home from court!
The story lives on...

Concourt confusions

The Constitutional Court is both awe-inspiring and beautiful. It is an experience of note to sit in the gallery of the giant court chamber and watch the country's top legal minds in action. The sight of that grand string of cloaked judges taking their seats as they preside over the highest court in the land is quite something to behold and well worth the effort.
The upstairs press gallery, however, is another story. This morning I was sent off to cover the beginning stages of the hearing into whether or not South Africans living overseas should be allowed to register and then cast their votes in the forthcoming election - despite the fact that the deadline allowing them to do so has passed. It was a last minute decision by the editors in charge, so I was too late to get one of the prized front row seats that allows for a decent view of the proceedings below and was forced to huddle with the latecomers.
So there I was, perched with notebook on lap, frantically taking notes in case fireworks erupted into front page news for the afternoon edition of my paper. This did not happen. Lawyers acting on behalf of the applicants droned on, speaking in some kind of legal code. The judges responded intermittently: Judge Albie Sachs wanting clarification on an issue, Judge Kate O'Regan making an observation or blind Judge Yacoob arguing a point.
It was all very hushed and proper. As rows of journalists scribbled away around me, I listened intently, wondering if I was the only one who didn't quite get the meaning of the interactions taking place. Did everybody else understand a long rambling point made by a lawyer and his even longer response when asked to re-discuss it in terms of Section 37B of the Electoral Act with reference to its wider consequences and future ramifications??
I nervously checked with my colleagues and got the reassurance I needed. We were all in the dark. Thankfully. It was going to take a while for a picture to emerge and a story to formulate. I left, grateful to be able to hand the case over to the politics reporter. Phew.
Back at the office I got to grips with a good old crime story. A Pretoria family were arrested for fraud, theft and money laundering. A stinking rich woman, her husband and father-in-law were bust by a top cop and his team, and the Asset Forfeiture Unit seized all their stuff. One of the cars they took was a Bentley Turbo. I checked it out on Wikipedia and discovered that it rates as more expensive than the Rolls Royce Silver Spirit, going for US$145 000.
I bet she never took that baby joyriding through Jozi!!

One Way Street

The story I covered today was one of those interesting ones that unfold and leave you not knowing who to believe.
It all started early this morning I received a call from a frantic mother who told me her teenage son was lying in hospital. He’d been shot by a cop for driving the wrong way up a one-way street. Oooookay.
So I fetched a photographer and we hauled ass to a hospital in Alberton where we encountered young Donovan who showed us his wounds – the entry and exit holes from a bullet shot through his gut. He had a gold front tooth, a tattoo on his neck and he was seriously annoyed cos the very same bullet had blasted a hole straight through his car door.
His version of what happened: “Me and my pal Wesley and this other retard were in my car.”
I asked for Retard’s name.
“Hey, we aren’t being nasty or anything, he knows we mean it in fun when we call him retard. He’s just this guy who fell off a roof on his head and now he’s a bit brain damaged and can’t work or anything but his company still pays him. But I think they’re gonna pay him off now cos he’s seriously a bit … like mentally handicapped or something.”
“Anyway – I don’t want to lie to you, so I admit that I had a bit of vodka in me at the time. So me and Wes and Retard go to a primary school to fetch Wesley’s nephew and I pull in the wrong way up a one-way. Next thing these two privates jump out with guns. I hear Doof! And then Wes starts yelling at me to reverse and get out cos they shot me.”
So Donovan drives home and his mom rushes him off to hospital after he stumbles out of his car all pale and dizzy and unable to speak properly.
Then the cops arrive, throw a few slaps around and then chuck Wes, Retard and Donovan's brother in the police cells.
I call the cops. Here is their version: Two cops out on patrol spotted a three guys in a car driving recklessly. They stop them, and the driver pulls a gun on them and they fire off a shot. The car races off, they chase it and find it abandoned in Donovan's yard, so they arrest the three guys they happen to find in the house after linking the car to two house robberies in the area. Then they discover that they shot someone so they release one of the guys in custody.
Don says: he was shot, then framed and all three guys are still in custody.
The cops say: he is a wanted suspect and all of them will be held in custody and will be taken to court tomorrow to face an attempted murder charge.
Totally bizarre!

Stress in the city.

I know I am able to handle deadline pressure, cover the most traumatic of stories without getting too rattled, walk past blood and bodies without flinching and view bodies in the morgue without gagging. But I have now discovered that it takes only a bit of unco-ordinated city traffic to crack me to the core and bring me to my knees.
I purposely work the early bird shift. It's tedious in winter when I begin my day in the dark and cold, but it affords me the luxury of spending a good chunk of my afternoons with Little One on the days I leave on time and means that I don't generally sit in traffic like most other Joburgers suffering the ongoing roadworks currently uplifting the city.
But alas. On Friday we were detained at the office for a newsroom strategy meeting which ended at 4pm. Coincidentally the same moment that, heralded by the sounding of taxi sirens from the streets below, the Jozi CBD turned into complete and utter chaos.
After a quick drink and a bit of social chit chat I decided to head home at 4,30pm. It took me 5 whole minutes to edge my little chariot out of the parkade and into the street. And then began the process of edging forward, little bit by little bit, and realised I was literally trapped and had no option but to continue with the flow. After 30 minutes I had travelled less than half a block.
Insanity prevailed. It was as though everyone had abandoned all traffic rules and regulations, as though all street lights and signs were invisible as the streets became a surreal free-for-all. Not one Metro police officer was anywhere to be seen. Pedestrians pushed their way into jammed intersections to try and guide traffic across from one side at a time with little success.
I have never seen such blatant lawlessness compounded by neglect by traffic authorities. It was actually scary. I listened to the radio for a traffic report or news flash to say what was going on. And it came: the CBD is gridlocked, the cause of it all being bad driving.
As I sat helplessly I fretted and steamed. I tried deep breathing and meditation. I phoned my mother. And then I settled into helpless resignation.
Now I know the Joburg City Council has spent millions and millions on scores of CCTV cameras which are now perched all around the CBD. I went to the launch of this State*Of*The*Art facility that is designed to bring law and order back to the city. Like other journos, I was fed all the PR bumpf about how a vigilant camera operator can zoom into a registration plate and detect a hijacker cruising in a stolen car. And so I know that without a doubt that chaos had to have at the very least been witnessed by those manning the control room they are linked to. Yet nothing was done about it.
After an hour-and-a-half I had moved a full two blocks and was able to turn off and head home freely. It was only a few minutes later that I encountered my next Metro cop horror. At a major intersection where cars were backed up, waiting for a filter arrow allowing them to turn into a side street, four Metro cars were parked as officers sat in wait to pounce on anyone daring to jump the light. FOUR Metro cars. None of them anywhere near the ongoing chaos in the CBD.
This, in my mind, is an outrage. It is beyond unacceptable. It has become my mission to work out a way to cover this story. I shall vent in print!!