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PRETORIA NEWSTUESDAY APRIL 30 2013 News

Thandi Maqubela at the Cape Town High Court yesterday. PICTURE: TRACEY ADAMS

Public transport ‘not

safe’, say youngsters

HALF OF young South Africanswho use public transport feel it isunsafe to do so, according to a sur-vey released yesterday.

Fifty percent of youth questionedfelt they were “not very” or “not atall” safe from attacks or accidentswhile using public transport.

Forty-seven percent felt “very” or“fairly safe”. The cellphone surveyby Pondering Panda was conductedamong 3 573 people aged between 13and 34.

Respondents singled out taxis asthe most dangerous form of publictransport, with 56 percent saying ithad the highest risk.

Twenty percent said trains werethe most unsafe, while 18 percentsaid it was buses. – Sapa

Napping rapist nabbed

AN EASTERN Cape man has beenarrested in connection with rapeafter falling asleep at the crimescene, police said yesterday.

Police found the man, 21, asleepon the floor in the shack of the 50-year-old victim, said Captain Jack-son Manatha. “The victim... lockedthe suspect in her shack. She went toa nearby tavern where she met herfriend and they phoned the police,”said Manatha.

Police said the suspect’s trouserswere still around his ankles whenhe was arrested on Sunday. He wasdue to appear in the ButterworthMagistrate’s Court. – Sapa

Robbers strike at church

A GROUP of people were robbed atgunpoint in a Soweto church, Gaut-eng police said yesterday.

Six armed men entered while thegroup was sleeping on Sundaynight. The intruders took cell-phones, guitars, amps, speakers, andother equipment and loaded theitems into a kombi.

Police were alerted andpatrolling officers responded.

The kombi was spotted and oneperson was arrested. The equipmentwas recovered. Five others fled.

The group was sleeping in thechurch to safeguard the musicalequipment, police said.

Education officials held

SIX OFFICIALS from the EducationDepartment’s Modimolle, Limpopo,district office have been arrestedafter allegedly creating ghost teach-ers and pocketing the salaries, theHawks said yesterday.

“They are alleged to have pock-eted more than R330 000 after renew-ing contracts of six teachers with-out their knowledge,” spokesmanCaptain Paul Ramaloko said.

The six officials were employedin the department’s humanresources and finance sections.

They allegedly received themoney between August and April. –Sapa

ZELDA VENTERHIGH COURT REPORTER

LAWYERS for HumanRights (LHR) has scored afirst-round victory for therights of eight childrenseeking asylum in South

Africa, but who have been sepa-rated from their parents for variousreasons.

The children – aged from six to 16– may now for the first time enterSouth Africa’s education system.

The Pretoria High Court orderedthe education minister and GautengMEC for education yesterday to pro-visionally allow the registration andadmission of the eight children inpublic schools this year.

The court also ordered the educa-tion minister to review – within sixmonths – the admission policy forpublic schools to comply with theconstitution, by making provisionfor child asylum seekers andrefugees.

The court will at a later stage beasked to review the government’spolicy regarding all children whoare dependants of asylum seekers,but who have been separated fromtheir parents and are now in thecare of family members or othercarers.

The children arrived in the coun-try without any documentation,which means they do not haveaccess to services such as educationand medical treatment.

LHR will ask the court to declarethat all the children be assisted byHome Affairs to obtain documentsin terms of the Refugees Act.

These documents would makelife much easier for them in thiscountry.

They would declare that theseseparated children were dependantsof their primary caregivers.

As things stand now, schools arefined if they enrol these children,who have no documentation.

The court will be asked to inter-dict the government from issuingfines or punishments againstschools that register these undocu-mented children who are depen-dants of asylum seekers andrefugees.

In the case brought to the court’sattention yesterday, the eight chil-dren hail from the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo (DRC).

In six of the cases the childrenwere orphaned when their parentswere killed in the DRC.

They fled from that country andwere in many cases reunited withrelatives here.

A six-year-old’s mother waskilled by Rwandan rebels and shefled to South Africa to be reunitedwith an aunt.

A 14-year-old came to SouthAfrica with her father, but he disap-peared during xenophobic attacksand she was left in the care of anuncle.

A seven-year-old fled to SouthAfrica with her mother, but wasabandoned here and now lives withan aunt.

Advocate Ann Skelton, directorof the Centre for Child Law, whoargued the case on behalf of theeight children, said the applicationarose out of the need of these chil-dren for access to asylum seeker per-mits to be admitted to the educationsystem.

The separated children havetheir own legitimate asylum claims,but cannot get these processed, asthey are minors with no legalguardians.

The separated children are notthe biological children of their pri-mary caregivers, but in some casesthey are related to them.

The government, however, doesnot recognise them as dependants oftheir carers.

They have no legal documenta-tion which provides for their statusin South Africa and are thus refusedentry to public schools.

It was submitted that this vio-lated their basic rights, as enshrinedin the constitution.

The Department of Educationindicated it would abide by any rul-ing the court gave.

Home Affairs indicated it wouldat a later stage oppose some of therelief asked for, but it has not yetfiled any opposing papers.

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Kids seeking

asylum score

court victory

Education authorities ordered toallow them to enrol at SA schools

‘Natural causes may havecaused Maqubela death’NATASHA PRINCE

ACTING Judge Patrick Maqubelamay have died as a result of naturalcauses in a variety of ways thatcould not easily be detected, whilehis death by unnatural causes mayalso not be ruled out.

This was the testimony of Profes-sor Gert Saayman, head of thedepartment of forensic medicine atthe University of Pretoria, in theCape Town High Court yesterday.

Saayman, who has been in themedical field for 30 years and hasconducted numerous autopsies, wasgiving his expert opinion on thereports compiled after the death ofthe acting judge.

Judge Maqubela was found deadin his Bantry Bay flat three yearsago, on June 7, 2009.

The State claims he was suffo-cated by his wife, Thandi Maqubela,and co-accused Vela Mabena, twodays earlier, on Friday, June 5, 2009.

The pair are on trial for murder. Thandi Maqubela maintains her

husband died of natural causes.She is also accused of forging her

husband’s signature on his will andfraudulently presenting it at theJoburg office of the master of thehigh court.

Yesterday the case was postponedfor three months to accommodateSaayman who will be unavailablefor cross-examination until July.

Saayman was giving evidence onreports compiled by pathologist DrSipho Mfolozi, who conducted theautopsy.

He also studied other medicaldocuments by the late actingjudge’s physician, Dr Brett Murray,and medical opinions of otherexperts.

“The court cannot exclude natu-ral causes as a cause of death in thisinstance…

“I am not in a position to excludeunnatural causes,” Saayman said.

Saayman agreed with Mfolozithat the cause of death could not bedetermined.

“I think overall, this is anautopsy that was properly con-ducted and recorded,” he said.

Mfolozi had previously testifiedthat suffocation could not be ruledout.

Yesterday defence advocate Mar-ius Broeksma asked Saayman tocomment on the general health ofJudge Maqubela after his physicianhad given evidence that he had beenin good health before his death.

Saayman said he could not realis-tically say that Judge Maqubela wasin excellent health.

He added that there were “signif-icant underlying diseases” whichwere common among males in theirlate fifties.

He said that based on Mfolozi’sautopsy report, there “was signifi-cant disease and changes recorded”regarding the heart, brain, liver andkidneys.

The court had previously heardthe late acting judge had sufferedfrom hypertension.

His heart was also found to havebeen enlarged and there was scar-ring surrounding it.

“Any enlarged heart is a risk forsudden death,” Saayman said.

Saayman said that when thecause of death could not be deter-mined during the autopsy, naturaldiseases had to be considered.

“There could be a myriad ofthings,” he said.

The trial is to resume on July 24.

KAMINI PADAYACHEE

BUSINESSWOMAN Shauwn Mpi-sane, who is charged with 181 countsin three cases, will spend much of hertime in the dock this week.

While Mpisane only appearedbriefly in the Durban CommercialCrime Court yesterday for her fraudand forgery case, she is expected togo on trial in her separate tax fraudmatter on Thursday.

In yesterday’s case she ischarged with 53 counts of fraud,forgery and uttering relating to heralleged submission of false docu-mentation to the ConstructionIndustry Development Board,boosting gradings granted to hercompany Zikhulise Cleaning, Main-tenance and Transport cc andresulting in her being granted fivecontracts, involving more thanR140 million, from the Departmentof Public Works between 2005 andlast year.

Prosecutor Joanna Bromley-

Gans asked for the case to beadjourned to July, because theState’s handwriting experts are still

analysing evidence that is expectedto be used at the trial.

Meanwhile, Thursday will be theofficial start of the State’s case inthe tax fraud matter after DurbanRegional Court magistrate, BlessingMsani, ruled last year that docu-ments the prosecution wanted to usewere admissable.

In this matter, Mpisane and hercompany, Zikhulise Cleaning Main-tenance and Transport, are facing119 counts of fraud involving R4.7mfor having allegedly submitted fakeinvoices and financial returns to thetaxman.

Mpisane pleaded not guilty to thecharges and in her plea statementblamed her former bookkeeperKishal Reddy – now a key State wit-ness – for any fraudulent tax sub-missions.

Reddy earlier pleaded guilty totwo charges, one of forgery andanother of contravening the VATAct. He was fined R30 000, or sixmonths’ imprisonment.

Mpisane set for grilling over fraud counts

Shauwn Mpisane. PICTURE: BONGANI MBATHA

LUNGELO MKAMBA

POLICE used a sim card to trackdown the driver of a VW golf whoallegedly ignored a stop sign andcrashed into another car, killing amother, her daughter and seriouslyinjuring the husband.

This emerged during the bail hear-ing of 28-year-old Kerwin Malgas, ofWentworth, the motorist accused ofthe crime and of fleeing the scene onfoot.

Malgas, who was granted R5 000bail by Durban magistrate VanitaArmu, is facing two counts of culpa-ble homicide and further charges ofnegligent driving, driving an unregis-tered car and failing to stop at thescene of the accident and assist theinjured.

It also emerged after questioningby the magistrate, that Malgas did nothave a driving licence and this chargewill now be added.

The accident in which SalahiaDawood, 30, and her nine-month-olddaughter, Maseehah, died occurred ata four-way intersection in Merebankover the Easter weekend when, it isalleged, the Golf crashed into theircar.

Husband Junaid Dawood – whoattended the hearing yesterday – wasinjured in the accident.

Testifying in opposition of bail,the investigating officer Warrant Offi-cer William Palmer told Armu thatthe car’s licence plates were falsewhich made it difficult to trace thedriver.

However, the breakthrough camewhen Malgas was traced through asim card found in the Golf by policewho attended the scene.

Palmer said he was worried about

public outcry and possible interfer-ence with witnesses should Malgas bereleased. He told the court that whenhe interviewed Malgas April 13 afterthe accident in a flat in Wentworth, heclaimed he had lost the sim card twoweeks ago and denied being any partof the accident.

He arrested him two to three daysafter the interview.

Under cross-examination bydefence attorney Shameer Goolab-jith, Palmer conceded that soon afterhe interviewed Malgas, Goolabjithhad offered to hand over his client ifpolice requested.

He argued that his client was not aflight risk, because police arrestedhim at the same residence where hehad been interviewed by Palmer ini-tially. “He did not flee after you inter-viewed him and even though I toldyou over the phone that I can handhim over, you arrested him,” Goolab-jith told Palmer.

“You are assuming he will flee.There is no basis for your argument.”

Prosecutor Blackie Swart arguedthat bail should be denied becauseMalgas had failed to show remorse tothe families because he had fled thescene.

Testifying for the State, RashidSuleman, the president of United Peo-ple’s Organisation, said Wentworthresidents wanted to march to Mal-gas’s home and “burn him withtyres”. Suleman said Malgas wouldnot be safe if released because therewere “radicals” who could take thelaw into their hands.

Suleman admitted that he knewthe whereabouts of Malgas two daysafter the accident but did not informthe police “because it is the police’sjob”.

Sim card used to trace

driver in fatal car crash

Cop in court over

graft, fraud, theft

A POLICE captain appeared in theLebowakgomo Magistrate’s Courtyesterday for alleged corruption,fraud and theft, Limpopo police said.

Captain Mavis Maphula Tlookewas granted R500 bail and the mat-ter was postponed to May 24 so thata date could be assigned in theregional court.

“Tlooke was arrested (last week)after she allegedly promised a policereservist at the Lebowakgomo policestation that she will ensure perma-nent employment for him (in thepolice),” said a spokesman.

This was, apparently, despite hisnot completing the psychometrictesting successfully.

Tlooke allegedly demandedR10 000 and it was agreed that thereservist constable could make thepayment in several instalments.When the reservist constable wasnot included on the lists of two sep-arate intakes to the police trainingcentre, he contacted police. – Sapa