Six court cases that got South Africans talking in 2015

24 December 2015 - 12:54 By Marzanne van den Berg
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Image: Gallo Images/Thinkstock

Tales of passion, intrigue and tragedy played out in South Africa's courts this year. We take a look back at the most talked-about cases of 2015.

1. The husband, the 'mistress' and the alleged hit

Just a week after the body of 28-year-old Port Elizabeth teacher Jayde Panayiotou was found, her husband was arrested and allegations of an affair and a contract killing emerged.

Christopher Panayiotou , a businessman who owns supermarkets and a night club in the Eastern Cape city, allegedly paid a middleman to hire someone to kill his wife.

Jayde was abducted by two men on an April morning as she waited outside her home to be picked up for work by a colleague. Her body was found in an isolated area near a Uitenhage township the next day.

Panayiotou was allegedly having an affair with an employee at one of his supermarkets.

He is charged with the murder together with the two alleged hitmen, Sizwezakhe Vumazonke and Sinethemba Nenembe, while the alleged middleman, club bouncer Luthando Siyoli, has turned state witness. The case is expected to go to trial in 2016.

2. Oscar Pistorius: Once more unto the breach

 

2015 had a nasty surprise for those who had their fill of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial in 2014.

The case was back in the spotlight as the country's prosecuting authority hauled the amputee sprinter back to court to appeal his culpable homicide conviction. The Supreme Court of Appeal agreed with the state that Pistorius should have been found guilty of murder and convicted him thus in December.

Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home on Valentine's Day 2013 after allegedly mistaking her for an intruder.

In the meantime, Pistorius was released from prison after serving a year of his five-year sentence. He was set to spend another four years under correctional supervision but after the appeal court ruling, he must now be sentenced all over again.

But Pistorius plans to launch a bid to fight his murder conviction in the Constitutional Court in 2016.

3. Justice for Mido Macia

 

The cellphone video of Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged along the road in Daveyton caused outrage worldwide.

Macia, 27, was found dead in a police cell about two hours later. He had suffered head injuries, lacerations and bruising.

The February 2013 incident threw the spotlight on police brutality, of which the service has been accused repeatedly.

In November, eight police officers were sentenced to 15 years imprisonment each for the murder of Macia.

Pretoria High Court Judge Bert Bam called the officers' behaviour "barbaric and totally unacceptable". He said they had clearly abused their right to use the necessary force to carry out an arrest.

4. 'Game. Set. Match' after 30 years

 

It took more than 30 years, but the women who were abused by tennis star Bob Hewitt were finally vindicated this year.

Hewitt, who was a doubles tennis champion in the 1960s and 1970s, was convicted in March of raping two of his former tennis students, Twiggy Tolken, 47, and Suellen Sheehan, 45, and indecently assaulting a third woman, 37, who by order of the court cannot be named, when they were minors in the 1980s and 1990s.

In May, he was sentenced to an effective six years in prison but he is still out on bail pending the outcome of the appeal he has launched in the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Judge Bert Bam said that Hewitt, 75, was calculated and shrewd in his abuse of the girls. He also said the fact that Hewitt, by his own admission, was like a father to the girls, made his crimes all the more heinous.

Hewitt's former teammate Ray Moore said Hewitt's liking for young girls was always an open secret in the tennis world.

5. Sex, drugs and the death of a rapper

 

It was a tale of "sex, drugs and jealousy" that unfolded when Skwatta Kamp rapper Nkululeko "Flabba" Habedi's girlfriend was tried for killing him.

Sindisiwe Manqele, 26, admitted that she stabbed Habedi in the chest in his Alexandra home on March 9 but said she did it to defend herself from him during a fight.

The court heard how the couple drank and smoked dagga at a nightclub hours before the fatal stabbing, and then got into an argument over money and jealousy.

Some of their friends said Manqele was jealous that Habedi spoke to an ex, while she said he was the jealous one because a man complimented her. She said Habedi was broke and insecure that she would leave him for a man with money.

Johannesburg High Court Judge Solly Sithole found that even if Manqele was defending herself, she had gone too far in stabbing Habedi and found her guilty of murder. She will return to court for sentencing on March 9 next year, exactly a year after Habedi's death.

6. A Mandela and a rape claim

 

When the name Mandela is associated with crime, it is big news. And it was no different when a grandson of the late anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was arrested for rape in August.

The world's media descended on the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court and the restaurant in Greenside, Johannesburg, where the alleged crime took place.

The young man, who may by law not yet be named because of the sexual nature of the crime he is accused of, was charged with raping a 15-year-old girl.

The girl claimed he forced himself on her, while the young man claimed he had consensual sex with her. He also said he believed she was older than 16, because even consensual sex with someone younger than 16 would be a crime.

The case is still being investigated and the man will appear in court again in March.

- TMG Courts and Law

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