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SA journalist lost farm and job to other peoples’ crimes

Destitute; unemployed Afrikaans journalist Engela Britz writes:

Britz Engela Afrikaans journalist lost her farm and property to SAPS confiscations no fault of her ownAdriana, as an old reporter, I can only say that I am disgusted with what we experience in the RSA. They claim that they cannot do news stories because of the so called "sub judicae"-principle. Yet there are no court-cases -  either because the SAPS  doesn't do its job or the Justice department employs people with limited experience.

“For the past ten years I have slowly become a victim of a specific crime that has had serious implications for all my so-called human rights. Lost my farm at Mooinooi near Brits (due to fraud and crime by someone else) and subsequently my economic rights now are severely affected.

Whatever happened to that R500-m donated by EU and UN for victims of crime?’ she asks…

Yet there are funds available to help victims of crime she pointed out: “In 2007, the EU and UN gave the RSA about R500-million – supposedly allocated to help victims of crime. No single person (government official!) can give us any information regarding what has happened to this money...” she says.

Engela – who comes from an old Afrikaner farming family and also is a skilled amateur-artist – started her slow downhill slide into poverty and dispair in 2001 when she bought a her farm at Mooinooi  near Pretoria–where she lived.

  • However the ‘purchaser’ turned out to be a fraudster and because of this fraud the farm was sold to someelse at an illegal auction: yet she hadn’t been paid so the sale was illegal: Engela then obtained a written agreement with the buyer that he will be appointed as her agent to her right to the farm. Meanwhile her movable assets were still at the farm -- but she no longer was able to access the farm to remove them: the new “owner” had set up a huge tik-manufacturing operation there.

He managed to produce R270-million worth of the dangerously addictive drug – known as crystal meths in Western countries --  by the time the SAPS arrested him and the AFU moved in to confiscate everything – including her movable property: despite the fact that she was  a totally innocent bystander who had been duped into selling her farm, and despite of the fact that the authorities were informed about her property. They were also provided with a copy of the contract between her and this man. 

She lodged a theft-complaint (Ref. Nr Mooinooi MAS 155/12/2007) with the National ProseBritz Engela her property is used illegally by security guards in the farm Mooinooi after drugsraid against current ownercutors’ Service’s office in Pretoria, at its Church Street headquarters -- about the poor investigation of this case by the SAPS and demanded her property back – because she had obviously never had anything to do with the illegal tik-drugs factory and was an entirely innocent bystander.

Britz Engela NPS letter admitting damage to her confiscated goods by SAPS but refusing to prosecuteShe said the NPA Adv Andre WIlsenach  acknowledged that her property had been illegally damaged – but because the complaint was unilaterally changed to ‘damage’ from her original ‘theft” complaint by the SAPS, and because of the delay in the investigation, it became impossible for him to prosecute:  they can’t establish exactly who damaged her property. “And the National Prosecuting Agency tells me they ‘cannot prosecute because they do not know who damaged my property, as the theft charge was changed to malicious damage, ” she said.

She received a letter to this effect on 19 January 2010 (left).

Meanwhile, the fraud and theft  docket somehow ‘got lost’ and nothing ‘could be proven’ – a duplicate case has been opened.

She then informed the AFU that she wanted the remainder of her illegally-confiscated property back -- which was still held under guard still on the farm. Security guards posted there refused to give her access at first. “When I finally did manage to get there,  I found the security guards using some of my property; (picture right); all the electrical things and valuables were looted; my paintings and drawings were destroyed; my furniture was dumped in the veldt.” Now it’s  all slowly rotting away in the rain and falling apart.

When  she finally got some of her property back it was destroyed – and now looks like this on her album:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11414&id=1756853145#!/album.php?aid=10723&id=1756853145

 

Britz Engela furniture destroyed and rotting...

Britz destroyed property 

sources:

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=messages&tid=1265282950094#!/album.php?aid=11414&id=1756853145

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine

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