The Department of Social Development says a one-year-old child of a South African woman who was born in a Senegalese prison has arrived in the country. The Department’s social workers arrived with the child this morning. The mother was arrested for drug trafficking last year and gave birth to the child a few days after her incarceration. The Department says the child will be taken into the care of her […]
John Barnard, one of the six members of a religious fringe group from Krugersdorp linked to grisly murders, has died in prison. “Offender John Anthony Bernard died last night [Sunday] due to natural causes,” department of correctional services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said on Monday. “He was detained at Barberton correctional centre.” Nxumalo did not state the cause of death. Barnard was one of the six Krugersdorp killers profiled in the Devilsdorp television series who […]
Saturday marks 33 years since the late Nelson Mandela was released from the then Victor Verster Prison in Paarl in February 1990. He was released after serving almost 27 years in prison. Mandela and seven other accused where sentenced to life imprisonment in June 12, 1964 after they were convicted of sabotage. He served 18 years in Robben Island from 1964 to 1982 before he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison […]
INTERNATIONAL A Bahrain court has upheld two charges against one of the kingdom's most prominent human rights defenders who is already serving a life sentence and has been protesting conditions in prison, his family and rights groups have reported. Abdul-Hadi al-Khawaja, a Danish-Bahraini national who was imprisoned in 2011 after leading peaceful protests, was convicted on Monday of insulting a prison guard and breaking a plastic chair, and fined the equivalent of […]
LOCAL The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in the Free State says it is shocked about the alleged reports at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein that workers are compelled to strip naked in front of their colleagues. The alleged disgusting gestures include everyone, even the opposite gender, as part of a search procedure to prevent contraband smuggling. The maximum security facility is privately run by British security firm G4S, […]
By Ebraheem Fredericks The Child Justice Act of 2008 has been amended to increase the minimum age of criminal capacity for children in South Africa. The increase, from 10-years-old, means that children under the age of 12 cannot be convicted of a crime. A child between 12 and 14 years who commits a criminal offence is therefore presumed to lack criminal capacity unless the state proves beyond reasonable doubt that […]
INTERNATIONAL An Israeli court yesterday turned down a request to release the oldest Palestinian prisoner, Fuad Al-Shobaki, Quds Press reported. The 83-year-old's daughter, Rania, said that her family filed a request to the Israeli court to release her father seven months before he is due to be released. "However, the court turned down the request to release my father despite his age and serious illness," she told Quds Press. She added that her father suffers […]
LOCAL An average of 48 prisoners escape from SA prisons each year. In a written reply to a question in the National Assembly, justice and correctional services minister Ronald Lamola said 285 prisoners escaped from custody over the past six financial years — from 2017/2018 to 2022/2023. “There was an average of 151,495 inmates in custody at any given time during [this] period. The escape rate can be averaged at […]
The Scottburgh regional court on Tuesday sentenced Sphiwe Mngadi, 43, to 12 years in jail after his conviction for tampering with and destroying essential infrastructure in the Mkhomazi area in April 2018. Mngadi was employed at the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) when he was found with 12 rolls of copper weighing about 192kg and worth R1m. On the day of the incident, two Prasa security guards on patrol […]
VOC became the first Muslim radio station in South Africa when a special events license was granted to the station in Ramadan/January 1995. Subsequent temporary broadcast licenses were granted, permitting the station to broadcast for 24 hours.
