Category: Justice

A teenager who helped her boyfriend kill her mother was sentenced to 20 years’ jail by the Western Cape High Court, Beeld reported on Saturday.

Judge Robert Henney on Friday accepted 19-year-old Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron’s plea bargain with the State and sentenced her to 20 years, five of which were suspended for five years.

She admitted that she helped her boyfriend, Kyle Maspero, strangle her mother Rosemary, 39, with a rope in her home in Fish Hoek on 7 March 2013.

In mitigation of sentencing she told the court that she spent the first three years of her life travelling through SA with her parents, selling marionettes, attending hippie gatherings, and using drugs.

Rosemary Theron abandoned her daughter when she was 5 to go to South America. She returned pregnant a few years later and performed as a clown and fire dancer at parties.

From the age of 6 Phoenix Theron was sexually assaulted by a friend of her father’s and her grandmother’s boyfriend.

She had to steal food as her mother often did not provide any, was in several primary schools and received home schooling. She had an abortion a week before the murder, and suffered from depression.

– SAPA

A court in Burkina Faso has refused to rule on a request by the family of ex-President Thomas Sankara for his body to be exhumed for DNA tests.

His relatives and supporters condemned the decision, saying they wanted proof that it was his body.

The High Court said it lacked jurisdiction over the case.

Seen by many as Africa’s Che Guevara, Mr Sankara was hastily buried after being killed during a 1987 coup led by incumbent President Blaise Compaore.

The anti-imperialist revolutionary became president in 1983 after an internal power struggle and led his country for four years.

The court’s ruling was greeted with outrage and contempt by Mr Sankara’s relatives and supporters, reports journalist Chris Simpson from the capital, Ouagadougou.

‘Incorruptible’

Campaigners say the family never had the chance to identify his body before he was buried in the capital’s Dagnoen cemetery.

About 100 people protested outside court, chanting “down with the Burkinabe judiciary” and “when will the Burkinabe people know the truth?”.

Mr Sankara was killed by a group of soldiers at the age of 37.

Public interest in Mr Sankara remains high in Burkina Faso, with opposition group demanding answers about his death, correspondents say.

Family lawyer Benewende Sankara said he would appeal against the decision.

President Compaore has so far refused to agree to Mr Sankara’s exhumation, and has always denied being involved in the ex-leader’s killing, Chris Simpson reports.

Mr Compaore insists the “facts are known” and he has “nothing to hide”, he adds.

When Thomas Sankara took power in 1983 he changed the West African state’s colonial name of Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means “the land of upright men”.

His supporters say he was incorruptible, unlike many other African leaders.

Mr Sankara was seen as charismatic and wore a beret, leading to comparisons with the Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara.

Many taxis across West Africa still have a round sticker of him on their windscreens.

AFP

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius Wednesday criticised Egypt for imposing death sentences on nearly 700 suspected Islamists.

“These sort of slaughter sentences are absolutely unacceptable,” Fabius told French lawmakers.

“One does not build peace through mass executions. One builds peace through reconciliation, and that is true for Egypt and for all nations in the world,” he said.

An Egyptian court on Monday imposed death sentences on 683 people, including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie, amid a crackdown on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Paris had asked Egypt to take steps to ensure that they received a fair trial.

The death sentences have been widely criticised internationally.

– AFP

relatives collapsed in grief and had to be carried away after hearing the verdict. A large crowd chanted: “Where is the justice?”

A judge at a mass trial in Egypt has recommended the death penalty for 683 people – including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie.

The defendants faced charges over an attack on a police station in Minya in 2013 in which a policeman was killed.

However, the judge reversed 492 death sentences out of 529 passed in March, commuting most to life in prison.

The cases and speed of the hearings have drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and the UN.

The trials took just hours each and the court prevented defence lawyers from presenting their case, according to Human Right Watch.

The sentences have been referred to the Grand Mufti – Egypt’s top Islamic authority – for approval or rejection, a step which correspondents say is usually considered a formality. A final decision will be issued in June.

Journalists outside the court say relatives collapsed in grief and had to be carried away after hearing the verdict. A large crowd chanted: “Where is the justice?”

Authorities have cracked down harshly on Islamists since President Mohammed Morsi, who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, was removed by the military in July.

Hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested.

The verdict was the first against Mr Badie in the several trials he faces on various charges along with Mr Morsi himself and other Brotherhood leaders.

wirestory

An Egyptian court sentenced 13 supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi Saturday to prison terms ranging from five to 88 years for rioting, a judicial source said.

They were accused of “rioting, sabotage and public order offences” in the southern towns of Samalut and Minya during protests against a bloody crackdown in Cairo on August 14 when hundreds of people were killed, the source said.

They are able to appeal the verdicts.

On March 24, 529 Morsi supporters were sentenced to death on the second day of their trial in Minya province in the largest mass death sentencing in Egypt’s modern history.

The sentences caused an international outcry.

On Monday, the same court is due to pass sentence on Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohamed Badie and 700 other Morsi supporters.

Rights group Amnesty International says more than 1,400 Morsi supporters have been killed since the army ousted him last July 3.

Another 15,000 have been arrested as the military-installed interim authorities crack down on the Brotherhood after designating it a “terrorist” group and blaming it for the wave of violence sweeping the country.

AFP