South Africa shoots itself in the foot.....

Two held for eye-gouging attack
December 11 2007 at 04:32PM

Police have arrested two men who are allegedly linked to the attack on Albert Khumalo of Inanda, whose eyes were gouged out by robbers last month. Khumalo was assaulted, stabbed and robbed before his eyes were gouged out with a sharp object.

Police spokesperson Dir Phindile Hadebe said: "The two men were arrested in Verulam and charged with attempted murder. But we are continuing the investigation."

Khumalo suffered a particularly vicious attack that robbed him not only of his cash, but also his eyesight.

His horrific experience mirrors that of Bongani Mngonyama of KwaMashu, whose eyes were also gouged out by robbers two years ago. In that attack in July 2005, Mngonyama was walking in KwaMashu's A Section, when he was accosted by two young men who robbed him of various items and then held him down. They then cut out his eyes.

Khumalo was on his way to an outside toilet when two men beat him up and took his money.

He said they continued beating him, before poking his eyes out with a sharp object.

The two suspects from the Eastern Cape appeared in the Verulam magistrate's court and were denied bail. They are being held in custody at Westville Prison before their next court appearance.

No arrests were made for the assault on Bongani Mngonyama

Man held for raping granddaughter
December 13 2007 at 03:49PM

A 62-year-old KwaZulu-Natal man has been arrested for allegedly raping his two-year-old granddaughter, police said on Thursday.

Spokesperson Constable Siwe Nxumalo said the incident took place at the man's residence in KwaMashu's K Section on Wednesday night.

"The mother noticed something was wrong with her child and took her to the doctor... he said the girl had been raped."

The child then pointed to her grandfather as the one who raped her, said Nxumalo.

He said it was unclear whether the girl had been repeatedly raped or whether it happened just once.

The grandfather lived in the same house with his daughter and granddaughter.

He would appear at the Verulam Magistrate's Court on Friday. - Sapa

Airport link to tourists' ambush
7 March 2008, 08:56

Ten minutes before a group of American tourists were due to arrive at their Joburg guesthouse, two armed men were dropped off outside the house and hid in the bushes.
When the six women arrived at their Observatory guesthouse around 6pm on Tuesday, the men - along with two other accomplices who were waiting in a nearby car - ambushed them.

The gang surrounded their vehicle and held them up at gunpoint, demanding their money, cellphones, laptops and digital cameras.

During the hold-up, a 75-year-old woman was pistol-whipped, and the gangsters also removed the women's jewellery, including chains and rings.
The gang made off with more than R50 000 worth of hi-tech equipment and about R80 000 in cash.

Sadly, the gang also took the money the women had raised in the US which they intended to donate to a Durban orphanage. Their passports were also stolen.
The robbers then fled the scene, and on their way out of the boomed suburb where the guesthouse is situated, they assaulted one of the security guards who tried to stop them.

An hour before the attack, the women checked through the gates of OR Tambo International Airport. There they declared their valuables, how much money they were bringing into the country and the address of the guesthouse.
On Thursday, the owner of the guesthouse, who did not want to be named, said the attack was not random and the men knew exactly what they were going for.
"They were waiting for the women to arrive. They knew they were coming. These men were seasoned professionals who put their guns to good use and took exactly what they wanted," she said.

The guesthouse owner said that after the attack, she called the airport to inquire about a possible leak at the customs department, but was told that nobody at customs was allowed to carry a cellphone on them, thus preventing any communication with people on the outside.

"But the person who helped to fill in their forms even assisted them outside (the customs department), and the women even tipped him. During that period he could have had instant communication with anybody," she said.
The guesthouse owner said the women spent their time in Joburg the next day arranging new passports and cancelling all their bank and credit cards.
They left Joburg for Durban on Wednesday evening.
"Many of them just want to go back home as quickly as possible," she said, adding that she did not know where in Durban they were staying.

This is the second such attack to have happened this week. On Monday, a couple, their 2-year-old child and an adult relative were ambushed by a gang outside their Sandringham, Joburg, home after arriving from OR Tambo International. They had just arrived from Nigeria.

Over the past year, dozens of people have been attacked shortly after arriving at the airport. And while evidence suggests there might be a syndicate colluding with airport staff to carry out the attacks, the police have denied this.
This week, the police said there was no evidence to suggest that a syndicate might be involved in most of the attacks.

The police said that while they investigate every case where people claim to have been followed from the airport, they had not been able to establish a definitive link that the robbers were operating out of the airport.
No arrests had been made.

South AfricaTourist raped at Lord Charles 2008-3-11 08:16Somerset West -
In an ordeal that lasted nearly two hours, a 60-year-old tourist from Holland was robbed and twice raped in a posh hotel at which she and her tour group were staying in Somerset West.
The police are investigating, but had not arrested anyone by Monday evening.

Apparently, the rapist had been waiting for his victim in her bathroom at about midnight.

The woman returned to her room in the Lord Charles Hotel at about 01:00, after she and other members of her group had had a few drinks in the bar.

The man presumably gained access to her ground-floor room through a sliding door, said Superintendent Mary-Anne Williams, acting station commissioner of Somerset West.

When the woman entered the bathroom, the man attacked her and forced her to the bed.

He demanded money and she gave him R3 600 that she had in her purse.

The woman's hands were bound behind her back with the belt of a towelling-cloth bathrobe and one of her shirts was used to gag her so that she couldn't scream.

The man raped her twice on the bed of the hotel room, after which he fell asleep.
He left the premises, presumably on foot, about 03:00 after tying her hands with a telephone cord.

Die Burger heard from a reliable source that at one stage the man had told her that he was not there to rape her, only to rob her.

Returning to Holland
The woman apparently gave permission for the rest of her tour group to be told about her nightmare experience.

The group was staying at the Waterfront on Monday night and the woman was returning to Holland on Thursday.

It is suspected the rapist was not an employee of the Lord Charles Hotel, but someone who had gained access from the street.

Erik Jansen, managing director of the Lord Charles Hotel, said they did not comment on their guests.

A question about security measures in the hotel was also met with a "no comment".

http://www.24.com/news/?p=tsa&i=861074

When I visited Cape Town in April in 2002, I never felt we were in danger of muggings or robbery. Our small group also visited a shanty town where the children held our hands as we were given a tour of their homes and facilities. The leader of the shanty town told us that local whites rarely or never visit them, but tourists visit frequently, and felt it was a two-way education for both the residents of their homes where the children see that "everybody is the same" and to educate people from other countries.

From what I observed, I think that even with the outlawing of apartheid, it will take many generations for blacks to become "equal."

cicerone imposter wrote:

When I visited Cape Town in April in 2002, I never felt we were in danger of muggings or robbery. Our small group also visited a shanty town where the children held our hands as we were given a tour of their homes and facilities. The leader of the shanty town told us that local whites rarely or never visit them, but tourists visit frequently, and felt it was a two-way education for both the residents of their homes where the children see that "everybody is the same" and to educate people from other countries.

From what I observed, I think that even with the outlawing of apartheid, it will take many generations for blacks to become "equal."

A tourists visiting a white man's country won't go to shanty towns. There aren't any. They'd visit palaces, cathedrals, museums, fountains and opera houses not a dirty shanty town full of children as a tourist attraction, in addition to wild life big five.

UK man escapes airport kidnapping
June 26 2008 at 09:36AM

Four Nigerian men were arrested on Thursday for kidnapping a 61-year-old British man from OR Tambo international airport and holding him captive for three days, Gauteng police said.
Captain Mack Mngomezulu said the men, aged between 20 and 34, were arrested at a house in Elsburg on the East Rand at 2am on Thursday after the 61-year-old British man escaped and alerted police.
The four Nigerian nationals allegedly went to the airport on Tuesday posing as drivers to collect the British man.
The four men took the British man to Mare street in Elsburg.
The Nigerians stole the man's luggage, his laptop and 14, 000 UK pounds (R217 840).
The British man escaped from the house where he was held early on Thursday morning.
He immediately alerted police who went to the house and arrested the four men.
The British man had been slightly injured during the kidnapping and robbery.
It is unknown how the 61-year-old escaped but investigations were continuing, said Mngomezulu.
The four men would appear before the Germiston magistrate's court soon on charges of kidnapping and robbery, he said. - Sapa