[Fwd: Ex-top cop's *alleged* crime rampage]

By Shaun Smillie

Twice police had former SA Police Service captain Patrick Magonono in
cuffs, and twice he got off to continue an alleged life of crime.

But luck ran out for the former head of the Criminal Investigations
Division (CID) at the Magaliesburg police station, when he was arrested
by the Hawks for his alleged involvement in the robbery at the Rio Hotel
Casino in Klerksdorp this year.

Hawks spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lesego Metsi said investigators
tracked down Magonono after CCTV footage caught an image of the number
plates on the black BMW 320 used in the crime.

The BMW was registered to Magonono. The robbery took place on April 15,
when staff and patrons were held up at gunpoint at the casino. A day
later, police made arrests.

Police allege Magonono's crime spree began at least two years ago while
he was head of the CID at the Magaliesburg police station.

Then, Metsi claims, Magonono was involved in a series of violent crimes
on smallholdings in the area.

The top cop was arrested in April 2008 along with five of his policemen
colleagues.

Prior to his arrest in 2008, said Metsi, Magonono resigned from the
police service.

He appeared in a Gauteng magistrate's court and was granted bail.

Then, in March, North West police again caught up with Magonono, this
time after a car chase and shootout.

While they were tying up the shopkeeper and his workers with cable ties,
a patrolling police van happened to drive by.

Police found a blue light inside the BMW, which was also fitted with a
police siren. Police also recovered Magonono's SAPS appointment
certificate and discovered that the car had been hijacked.

Magonono appeared in the Tlhabane Magistrate's Court on March 23 on a
charge of business robbery, possession of a vehicle suspected to have
been stolen, attempted murder and impersonating a police official.

He was again granted bail, said Metsi.

"He was given bail because it was alleged he was assaulted by police,
and because he had a fixed address and was South African," explained
Metsi.

A month before Magonono appeared in the Tlhabane Magistrate's Court, the
Hawks believed he was involved in another armed robbery at the Sun City
casino near Rustenburg, where a gang of 10 heavily armed men made off
with an undisclosed amount of money.

Metsi said investigators were also trying to link Magonono to a number
of house robberies.

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on June 30,
2010

Published on the Web by IOL on 2010-06-30 04:35:00

Comments:

Anonymous wrote :
Why give him bail after he was caught the second time?

Anonymous wrote :
Let me guess, he used a firearm handed into the police station by some
innocent citizen who didn't get a licence renewed.

Peter T wrote :
An armed robber who happen to be a former Police Captain is granted bail
for Armed Robbery? Our justice system is getting worse by the day
(Edited by IOL)

Anonymous wrote :
Oh he will be released soon and all charges dropped against him so he
ONCE AGAIN can continue with his criminal behaviour. Welcome to the NEW
south africa

Tjoppie wrote :
We need another police force to protect us against the police.

[Fwd: Piepie Snyman stuur groete]

The death toll in the Eastern Cape's winter **circumcision season**
(WTF???) has risen to 39, the provincial health department said on
Monday.

Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the latest deaths had occurred in the
Ntabankulu and Engcobo areas of the Transkei, and on farms in the Chris
Hani district, which includes Queenstown.

National Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka said at the weekend
he was considering regulating initiation schools after ongoing reports
of youths dying at illegal schools.

His department was also seeking harsh sentencing for those found to be
running illegal schools.

The Eastern Cape already has its own circumcision legislation, but says
prosecutions are sometimes hampered by a lack of co-operation from
communities and parents.

[Fwd: Thieves add insult to robbed England squad]

By Beauregard Tromp

The defeated England team will be able to return home with their
underwear and a Fifa gold medal - if not their dignity - following their
embarrassing loss to Germany.

The England team were bundled out of the World Cup on Saturday when
Germany beat them 4-1 - and were robbed of a goal by the ref.

And while the likes of Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard tried their best
to salvage their battered reputations, staff at their Rustenburg hotel
were rifling through the players' designer label closets, helping
themselves to briefs and boxers and a selection of other items.

Whereas the hordes of English supporters refused to see the writing on
the wall for their team, the cleaners at the state-of-the-art Royal
Bafokeng Sports Palace, where the team were based, seemed to see their
opportunity fading before their eyes.

With the team having drawn two games and facing the prospect of not
proceeding past the group stage and going home, the cleaning staff at
the Royal Marang Hotel started their spree, collecting nearly R80 000
worth of clothes, personal belongings and ?485 (R5 530) in cash.

"They started on June 21 and stole things until June 25," said North
West police Colonel Junior Metsi.

Police have been asked not to reveal the names of the players who had
goods stolen, but The Star has been reliably informed that items were
stolen from virtually every member of the squad.

It seems the English team started missing their jocks only after four
days, with a case of theft opened with the police on Saturday.

In less than 24 hours, Thulane Fortunate Mongake, 26, Ernest Zimisile
Klaas, 28, Thapelo Joseph Senne, 21, Basimane Levy Njielane, 34, and
Catherine Motsilanyane, 28, were arrested, tried and sentenced to three
years or a fine of R6 000 in the Tlhabane World Cup court.

All the stolen items were returned, among them a gold World Cup winners'
medal.

This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on June 29,
2010

The Fellowship of the Vuvuzela

Coming this summer winter to a stadium near you!

FIFA vs. the world

Now the impostors – as a French newspaper dubbed their team – have
collapsed in a scandalous frenzy of infighting, training strikes,
insubordination and resignations, and even the French media are rooting
for a Bafana Bafana victory today. One can only wonder if FIFA still
thinks rigging the game to make sure the arguing cheats got to South
Africa was better than being honest and welcoming an Irish team to the
big time. I live in the town where the French team stays, and I have yet
to meet someone who wouldn't have preferred to host the Irish,
especially after the French tried to avoid the crowd who were out in a
chilly dawn to welcome them, and had to be turned back by police towards
the crowd-lined main road, only to whine about the amenities at the
town's most luxurious resort hotel.

While all this has been going on, FIFA has kept itself occupied with
hunting down criminals in South Africa.

People like Bongani Sithole, a part-time employee of the South African
Football Association, who happened to have a pair of complimentary
tickets and offered them to a desperate fan for a fee. He was arrested,
and the tickets confiscated, until a court found that he had contravened
neither any law, nor the terms and conditions of the tickets. The
hopeful buyer never did get to see the match.

Like Rodos Ioannides, a Bloemfontein coffee shop owner, who is in
trouble for using the acronym "FIFO", a well-known term for "First-In,
First-Out". The products he promotes cost R20.10. This price, it would
appear, is illegal.

Innocent fans entering stadiums are searched by SAPS officers, under the
direction of FIFA officials, to confiscate illegal clothes, folding
umbrellas and handbags of criminal size. On the orders of FIFA, our own
police stands ready to arrest our own citizens, should they be suspected
of infringing the Byzantine laws our new masters have imposed.

The 56 special FIFA courts, staffed by 110 magistrates, 260 prosecutors,
93 foreign language interpreters, 110 local language interpreters, 1 140
court officials and 327 court orderlies who usually just laze around our
regular courts all day, has heard 18 cases to date, reports Mail &
Guardian journalist Lionel Faull. He notes that with a total budget of
R45 million, this works out to R1.75 million for each of the eight
convictions. Our FIFA magistrates, naturally, have a lot of time to
follow the football, and can credibly call it research, to boot.

Full article at
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2010-06-22-i-ordered-an-orange-skirt

[Fwd: Letter to World Cup Visitors]

By Peter Davies 09/06/2010 09:09

Dear World Cup visitors,

Now that you are safely in our country you are no doubt happily
realising you are not in a war zone. This may be in stark contrast to
what you have been bracing yourself for should you have listened to Uli
Hoeness or are an avid reader of English tabloids, which as we all know
are only good for wrapping fish 'n chips and advancing the careers of
large-chested teens on page three.

As you emerge blinking from your luxury hotel room into our big blue
winter skies, you will surely realise you are far more likely to be
killed by kindness than by a stray bullet. Remember that most of the
media reports you have read, which have informed your views on South
Africa, will have been penned by your colleagues. And you know what
journos are like, what with their earnest two thousand word opuses on
the op-ed pages designed to fix this country's ills in a heartbeat.
Based on exhaustive research over a three-day visit.

Funnily enough, we are well aware of the challenges we face as a nation
and you will find that 95% of the population is singing from the same
song-sheet in order to ensure we can live up to our own exacting
expectations.

We are also here to look after you and show you a good time. Prepare to
have your preconceived notions well and truly shattered.

For instance, you will find precious few rhinos loitering on street
corners, we don't know a guy in Cairo named Dave just because we live in
Johannesburg, and our stadiums are magnificent, world-class works of
art.

Which is obviously news to the Sky TV sports anchor who this week
remarked that Soccer City looked 'a bit of a mess'. She didn't realize
the gaps in the calabash exterior are to allow in natural light and for
illumination at night, and not the result of vandalism or negligence.

The fact that England, the nation which safely delivered Wembley Stadium
two years past its due date, is prepared to offer us South Africans
advice on stadium-readiness should not be surprising. The steadiest
stream of World Cup misinformation has emanated from our mates the Brits
over the past couple of years.

If it's not man-eating snakes lurking in Rooney's closet at the team's
(allegedly half-built) Royal Bafokeng training base, then it's
machete-wielding gangs roaming the suburbs in search of tattooed,
overweight Dagenham dole-queuers to ransack and leave gurgling on the
pavement.

In fact what you are entering is the world's most fascinating country,
in my opinion. I'm pretty sure you will find that it functions far more
smoothly, is heaps more friendly and offers plenty more diversions than
you could possibly have imagined.

In addition to which, the population actually acts like human beings,
and not like they are being controlled by sinister forces from above
which turns them into bureaucratically-manipulated robots.

Plus we have world's most beautiful [white] women. The best weather.
Eight channels of SuperSport. Food and wine from the gods themselves.
Wildlife galore. (Love the Dutch team's bus slogan: "Don't fear the Big
5; fear the Orange 11").

Having said all that, Jo'burg is undoubtedly one of the world's most
dangerous cities. Just ask those Taiwanese tourists who got out of their
hired car to take close-up snaps of tawny beasts at the Lion Park a few
years back. Actually, ask what's left of them. And did you know the
chances of being felled by cardiac arrest from devouring a mountain of
meat at one of our world class restaurants has been statistically proven
to be 33.3% higher in Jozi than in any other major urban centre not
built upon a significant waterway? It's true. I swear. I read it in a
British tabloid.

Having recently spent two years comfortably cocooned in small town
America, I'm only too aware of how little much of the outside world
knows about this country. The American channel I used to work for has a
massive battalion of employees descending on World Cup country. It has
also apparently issued a recommendation to its staff to stay in their
hotels when not working.

Given that said corporation is headquartered in a small town which many
say is "best viewed through the rear-view mirror", I find the
recommendation, if it's true, to be utterly astounding. In fact I don't
believe it is true.

Contrary to the global stereotype, the best Americans are some of the
sharpest people in the world. The fact they have bought most tickets in
this World Cup proves the point.

Of course I have only lived in Johannesburg, city of terror and dread,
virtually all my life, so don't have the in-depth knowledge of say, an
English broadsheet journalist who has been in the country for the
weekend, but nevertheless I will share some of my observations gleaned
over the years.

Any foreign tourist or media representative who is worried about his
safety in South Africa should have a word with the Lions rugby fans from
last year, or the Barmy Army cricket supporters (lilywhite hecklers by
day, slurring, lager-fuelled lobsters by night). They managed just fine,
just like the hundreds of thousands of fans who have streamed into the
country over the past fifteen years for various World Cups, Super 14
matches, TriNations tests and other international events. Negligible
crime incidents involving said fans over said period of time.

Trivia question: which country has hosted the most global sporting
events over the past decade and a half? You don't need me to answer
that, do you?

In addition. Don't fret when you see a gaggle of freelance salesmen
converge on your car at the traffic lights (or robots as we like to call
them) festooned with products. You are not about to be hijacked. Here in
Mzansi (nickname for SA) we do a lot of our purchasing at robots. Here
you can stock up on flags, coat hangers, batteries, roses for the wife
you forgot to kiss goodbye this morning and a whole host of useful
merchandise.

Similarly, that guy who runs up as you park the rental car outside the
pub intends no malice. He's your car guard. Give him a buck or two and
your vehicle will be safe while you refuel for hours on our cheap,
splendid beer. Unless someone breaks into it, of course.

We drive on the left in this country. Exercise caution when crossing the
road at a jog-trot with 15 kilograms of camera gear on your back.
Exercise common sense full stop. Nothing more. Nothing less. If you want
to leave wads of cash in your hotel room like our Colombian friends,
don't be surprised if it grows wings.

Bottomline. Get out there and breathe in great lusty lungfuls of this
amazing nation. Tuck into our world-class food and wines. Disprove the
adage that white men can't dance at our throbbing, vibrant night-clubs.
Learn to say hello in all eleven official languages. Watch at least one
game in a township. You will not be robbed and shot. You will be
welcomed like a lost family member and looked after as if you are
royalty. Ask those Bulls rugby fans who journeyed to Soweto recently.

With a dollop of the right attitude, this country will change your life.

It's Africa's time. Vacate your hotel room. Join the party.

Waka waka eh eh.

Fwd: Our 2010 South Africa World Cup Scrapbook

Fwd: Since it's winter while the World Cup is on...

...how do the football players keep warm?

Fwd: My kind of SA flag

[Fwd: In preparation for World Cup, the poor in Cape Town are being relocated]

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Friday, June 11, 2010

DELFT, SOUTH AFRICA -- Shirley Fisher says she was evicted from a hostel
near a stadium where soccer's biggest stars train. Natasha Flores says
she was driven out of squatters' quarters near a new $450 million
stadium in one of Cape Town's busiest tourist areas.

Both ended up in Blikkiesdorp, a settlement of corrugated-iron shacks
ringed by a concrete fence, home to hundreds of evicted families. Many
residents say there is only one reason they wound up in this bleak
place, which in Afrikaans means "tin-can town."

"The World Cup," said Fisher, 41, without hesitation.

Human rights campaigners say South African authorities have forcibly
moved thousands of the impoverished to Blikkiesdorp and other
settlements to present a good image of the nation during the World Cup,
which begins Friday. Cape Town city council officials deny the
allegations. What is clear is that the complaints have exposed the wide
gap between South Africa's rich and poor residents 16 years after the
end of apartheid.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061002060.html?referrer=emailarticle

[Update: WC2010 robbers caught]

Three Zimbabweans and a Nigerian have been apprehended following the
robbery of foreign journalists covering the Football World Cup.

National Police Spokesperson Brig. Sally de Beer said three of them were
apprehended in Hekpoort, the fourth in Brits in the NW Province.

Laptops, four cellphones, an iPod, a camera, two bags, Puma takkies,
sunglasses, as well as SA and foreign currency were recovered.

http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/4-vas-na-WB-joernaliste-beroof-is-20100610

Go Bafana!

Fwd: The Giant Vuvuzela in Cape Town

Giant Vuvuzela erected on unfinished highway in Green Point.

It's going to make a noise every time a goal is scored.

Very, very lucky local residents.

[Fwd: World Cup reporters 'robbed at gunpoint']

Three foreign journalists covering the World Cup in South Africa have
been robbed at gunpoint, police say.

One of them saw two robbers as they broke into their lodgings near
Johannesburg in the early morning.

"One of the suspects pointed a gun at the journalist and told him to lie
down," police spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi said.

The reporters, two from Portugal and the other from Spain, were not
injured but passports and equipment were taken.

Col Mulaudzi said the police had good leads and hoped to make an arrest
soon, the South Africa Press Association reports.

"They got away with some money, passports, photographic material and
clothing."

Police said the lodge where the journalists were staying would have to
"jack up" its security.

Fwd: Jo'burg World Cup Spirit

This is the sight that greets visitors as they exit from OR Tambo
airport in Johannesburg.

[Fwd: South Africa deports Argentine football 'hooligans']

South Africa has deported 10 suspected Argentine football hooligans who
police say were planning to disrupt the World Cup.

The men, part of a larger group of about 80 fans, were arrested at
Johannesburg airport and found to be on an entry blacklist.

The men were said to belong to the country's "barras bravas", organised
groups renowned for football-related violence.

They were detained on Sunday after travelling from Argentina via the
Angolan city of Luanda, and deported on Monday.

At least two of them were group leaders, and another was out on bail for
murder, according to police.

Source: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/10274187.stm

"No dumping"...

...means "no dumping".

Google's Street View has come to South Africa.

[Fwd: No Hawking]

[Fwd: 'Every day brings momentous exhilarations']

Rian Malan, writer, journalist and documentary-maker, argues for living
on the edge in South Africa.

The Observer, Sunday 16 May 2010

It's a sunny weekday afternoon in Jo'burg, and I am lunching with
friends at an outdoor restaurant. The joint we're in was hit by armed
robbers earlier this week. The newspapers on the table are full of
hair-raising tribulations – our former police chief on trial for
bribery, commuter buses shot up by murderous taxi bosses who won't
tolerate competition, and elders of the African National Congress
declining to sign the charge sheet against Julius Malema, the
controversial youth leader who made global headlines the other day by
endorsing Robert Mugabe, the cocky little psychopath who ruined
neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Malema is now facing disciplinary charges, but no one in the ruling
party is willing to take the risk of being identified as his accuser.
This is worrying. Are racist demagogues winning the battle for control
of the ANC? Are decent black men scared to take a stand lest they find
themselves alongside whites, trussed up in the missionary cooking pot
while Malema lights a fire beneath us? In a normal society, such
questions would induce nervous breakdown, but my mates and I are
laughing. We're sitting in the African sun, sharing jokes, and wondering
how to con foreigners into coming here for the World Cup.

Once upon a time, South Africans imagined that this soccer extravaganza
would make us all rich. Myself, I struggled to believe that half a
million football tourists would cross the planet in the midst of a
brutal recession to visit a country best known for its high crime rate.
My neighbours scoffed, preferring to believe they would make a killing
by renting out their homes. Alas. Bookings are running at about half the
anticipated level. Would-be scalpers are stuck with tickets they can't
even give away, and Fifa's gluttonous marketing arm has reportedly
managed to lease only 1% of the luxury private boxes in our enormously
expensive new stadia.

I am rather enjoying the resulting cries of pain. Fifa has made a monkey
out of South Africa, encouraging us to spend billions we don't have on
football stadiums we don't need in the absurd belief that we could
recoup our losses by gouging football tourists whose willingness to come
here was always in doubt. Our own leaders collaborated enthusiastically,
partly because they relished the glory of presiding over an event of
World Cup stature, but also because they were eager to participate in
murky backroom deals that saw politically connected individuals reaping
obscene profits on taxpayer-funded construction contracts. Now we're all
saddled by debts it will take generations to pay off. I'm so riled that
part of me would be gratified if the World Cup were a complete failure.

But South Africa is a complicated country, and there's always another
side of the story. As I write, a certain Mrs Gladys Dladla is ironing
clothes in my kitchen. Gladys is an old-school Zulu matriarch,
struggling heroically to maintain a huge family on her meagre earnings
as my once-a-week char. She lacks the wherewithal to bribe officials who
control access to state housing, so she's lived in a tin shack for 16
years. In recent weeks, getting to work has become a frightening ordeal
thanks to renewed tensions between police and the aforementioned taxi
thugs. Gladys's life seems entirely miserable, but she always shows up
on time, chattering cheerfully about church and her hope that God and
the ancestral spirits will soon guide us to victory in the national
lottery. Gladys and I have a little syndicate going.

The World Cup is an event of huge symbolic importance to Mrs Dladla. In
the next several weeks, oily ANC politicians will attempt to convince
you that this tournament is a tribute to their heroic victory over
apartheid and associated triumphs of the human spirit. Hm. For people
like Gladys, the longing for success is actually rooted in despair.
They're so tired of being losers and also-rans, trapped at the bottom of
a society that constantly threatens to degenerate into just another
African basket case. Their dream was that in June 2010 the world's eyes
would descend on us, and at last find something to admire.

Mrs Dladla looks on these things with enormous pride. She feels that
their glory reflects on her directly, and besides, there's always the
hope that football tourism might generate jobs for her unemployed
offspring. She was a great supporter of short-lived plans to turn my
rambling old home into a cheap doss house for football hooligans. In the
end, I baulked at paying tribute to Fifa, whose lawyers crushed all
attempts to market World Cup lodgings through any channels other than
their own. Just as well, because our doss house would most likely have
failed anyway.

So now we stand before you with clean hands. We have nothing to gain
from the World Cup but the pleasure of your company, so it would be nice
if you changed your minds about coming. Please! We've almost bankrupted
ourselves in our determination to stage a tournament that runs like
clockwork. And if it doesn't – you can have a chuckle at our expense.

Last week's newspapers reported a state of abject unreadiness among the
pom-pom girls scheduled to perform at the opening ceremony. A day or two
later, President Jacob Zuma informed America that we have the laziest
and most useless civil service on the planet. Elsewhere such an
admission would have precipitated the government's downfall. Here, the
story was relegated to page five.

I struggle to see how anyone can resist a country where such things
happen. South Africa is amazing! At any given moment, all possible
futures seem entirely plausible. We are winning, we are losing. We are
progressing even as we hurtle backwards. Every day brings momentous
exhilarations and dumbfounding setbacks, and the sun shines brightly
even in winter. Throw in the heady proximity of Mandela and Beckham, and
you're almost guaranteed a splendid time.

As for crime, well, yes, crime is a threat, but our police have been
given orders to smash anyone who so much as touches a hair on any
football fan's head. If you book now, you'll arrive just in time to
catch a last glimpse of our fading rainbow, and the first stirrings of
our next upheaval.

If that sounds alarming, I wouldn't worry. There is much to be said for
living on the edge, in a place shot through with "heart space and the
danger of beauty", as the Boer poet Breytenbach once phrased it. Britain
seems pallid in comparison. We are told that your election was an event
of epochal significance, but from Jo'burg, it looked boring – three nice
white men with almost identical opinions jostling for space on the same
centrist pinhead. As for the prospect of a hung parliament… you call
that a crisis? Good God. We have far worse, every day, before breakfast.
And we're still laughing. Better get here before we stop.