Author: Publisher

{{The officer who arrested Oscar Pistorius on the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed last year testified Friday that police at the crime scene mishandled evidence, including a ballistics expert who handled the murder weapon without gloves.}}

Former station chief Giliam van Rensburg, who was among the first on the scene of the crime and who arrested Pistorius, retired from the police force last year.

Police conduct following the 2013 Valentine’s Day killing could have a strong bearing on the outcome of the trial if the presiding judge, Thokozile Masipa, believes that vital forensic evidence was so tainted as to be inadmissable.

Van Rensburg said he saw one policeman mishandling the murder weapon, a 9mm pistol, which was left on the blood-soaked bathroom mat in Pistorius’ home.

“At that particular moment, the ballistics expert was handling the firearm without gloves,” Van Rensburg told the court. He added that the officer had removed the gun’s magazine.

He also told the court that at least one watch, worth as much as $10,000 (€7,000), vanished from the track star’s home while forensic experts were examining a blood-splattered box containing seven other timepieces.

“I saw those watches and I said, this is tempting for any person because this is [sic] expensive watches,” he told the court.

Van Rensburg said he reacted with anger when he discovered that a watch was in fact missing.

“I said, ‘I can’t believe it. We were just there. How can this watch be gone?’”

When searches failed to turn up the missing watch a theft docket was opened, he said, adding: “I was furious.”

{{Contradictory evidence}}

Under cross-examination, Van Rensburg conceded that there were several contradictions between his statements and those of other police officers at the scene, saying some of his colleagues had submitted hearsay evidence.

He disputed evidence described by the former lead detective on the case, Hilton Botha, and expressed his shock by yelling “Amazing!” when he heard Botha’s version of events.

During the athlete’s bail hearing last year, Botha admitted that he had walked through the scene without protective footwear and missed identifying a bullet that had lodged in the toilet bowl.

Defence lawyer Barry Roux has previously criticised the police’s conduct and the issue is expected to be a key element of the trial as it continues.

Van Rensburg described for the court a series of photos taken at the crime scene shortly after Reeva Steenkamp was shot in the early hours of the morning.

They included nightmare images of the 29-year-old model’s fatal head wound and photos of a shirtless Pistorius covered in blood shortly after the shooting.

In several images the athlete is seen standing in his garage, expressionless and staring straight at the camera, wearing blue blood-soaked shorts and with dried blood on his left arm.

Other photos showed the blood-drenched toilet stall where Steenkamp was shot, as well as bullet marks on the wall.

Pistorius, 27, says he shot Steenkamp through the locked bathroom door after he mistook her for an intruder in the middle of the night.

AFP

{{Dozens of gunmen on motorbikes killed more than 100 villagers in a string of attacks this week over land in northwest Nigeria, survivors said Thursday. Police said the conflict was likely due to a feud between herdsmen and their agrarian neighbours.}}

The attacks, which began on Tuesday night, left scores of people fleeing on foot from the four targeted villages about 110 miles (180 kilometres) south of Katsina city near the Niger border.

People were still burying victims at Marabar Kindo village when the attackers returned on Thursday afternoon and gunned down another seven villagers, resident Adamu Inuwa told media. They also set fire to thatch-roofed huts, Inuwa said.

Kabiru Ismail of Maigora village said the first raid came late Tuesday and residents were continuing to recover bodies of people who had fled into the bush with the gunmen in pursuit.

Reached by telephone on Thursday afternoon, Ismail said he had counted 103 bodies in three of the four villages. Five vehicles were also torched, he said.

The chief imam of Maigora said two policemen responding to calls for help were among the dead. He and Ismail also said two men in military uniform were among the attackers.

“The victims include men, women and children,” Katsina lawmaker Abbas Abdullahi Michika told reporters on Thursday.

{{Police downplay violence}}

Villagers complained that no soldiers had come to the scene by Thursday morning.

Katsina’s police chief, Hurdi Mohammed, said the violence was perpetrated by ethnic Fulani herdsmen. Mohammed estimated that 30 people had died in the violence, which first broke out late Tuesday.

His colleague, Superintendent Aminu Sadiq, police spokesman for Katsina state, said he had heard of only five deaths by Thursday afternoon. Nigerian officials regularly downplay casualty figures.

For months, the area has been terrorized by raids blamed on semi-nomadic Fulani herders attacking Hausa farmers. Both are Muslim. Fulani in the region have long complained that farmers are taking over grazing lands crucial to their survival.

Most Fulani-related violence in Nigeria is concentrated around central Plateau state, where Muslim herders are pitted against Christian farmers.

“Falani are nomadic; they trade in cattle; sometimes they lead their cattle into farmland and destroy crops, provoking conflict” political analyst Opeyemi Agbaje told media.

“This has been going on for years, but the attacks are now becoming more frequent, more widespread, more organised, and worryingly, the Fulani men are now armed with AK47s, further increasing fatality rates. There also reports that they may have support from outside of Nigeria,” he said.

Such conflicts – a mix of tribal and religious animosity aggravated by growing rivalries over land and water resources – are unrelated to an Islamic uprising led by Boko Haram, concentrated mainly in the northeast of Nigeria in which Boko Haram-led militants also have killed thousands of civilians.

‘Ethnic cleansing’

Authorities appear unable to end the carnage or resolve any of the conflicts.

Human Rights Watch warned in a December report the insurgency could spread with extremists invoking “the lack of justice for attacks on Muslims” in Plateau and Kaduna states, where it reported entire villages have been “ethnically cleansed” of Fulani Muslims.

The New York-based advocacy group blamed the government for failing to prosecute known perpetrators, leaving people to resort to revenge attacks.

On Thursday, the visiting UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, said she encourages the government to investigate and prosecute human rights violations including those committed by Islamic militants and by security forces as well as perpetrators of ethno-religious violence.

Villagers attacked this week noted that in past raids in Katsina state the herders stole their belongings and especially cattle and sheep. “This time they just killed people,” Ismail said. “It’s as if their mission is to wipe out entire villages.”

france24

{{Six Egyptian soldiers have been killed by gunmen at a checkpoint in the northern Cairo suburb of Shubra al-Khayma, state media reports.}}

A security official said two bombs left behind by the attackers had been defused.

The violence comes two days after another soldier was shot dead in an attack on an army bus in eastern Cairo.

There has been an upsurge in violence since the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last July.

Islamist militants have killed hundreds of police and soldiers in numerous attacks.

The military accused Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood of carrying out this latest attack, which was carried out as the soldiers took part in dawn prayers.

The Brotherhood denies involvement in violence, saying it is committed to peaceful campaigning.

Trials
It was designated a terrorist group in December and thousands of its members have been put on trial.

A series of high-profile attacks on security forces in Cairo and the Sinai peninsula have been claimed by another group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which it says are in revenge for the military-backed government’s repression of Mr Morsi’s supporters.

Mr Morsi, elected in 2012 following the overthrow of veteran ruler Hosni Mubarak, was ousted by the military amid huge streets protests against him, after a year in power marred by deep political and social divisions.

Mr Morsi is in jail facing four separate trials. The charges, which he denies, include the killing of opposition protesters, espionage and conspiring to commit acts of terror.

Military chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is expected to stand in presidential elections which are due to be held in April.

{wirestory}