2010-10-26 Kobus Joubert, 70, murdered execution-style, well-known Zimbabwean-Afrikaner tobacco farmer
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Death toll of murdered Zimbabwean farmers: 23
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Death toll of murdered SAfrican farmers: 3,739
Sarel van der Walt of Beeld newspaper writes:
Kobus Joubert, 70+, descendant of a well-known Voortrekker family and one of Zimbabwe’s foremost Afrikaner tobacco-farmers, was murdered execution-style by a murder squad on his farm near Chigutu, about 100km south west of Harare. The retired president of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Farmers Association (ZTA) was shot dead with one shot shortly after midnight on Tuesday, October 26, 2010.
His wife Mariaan had gone to investigate a suspicious noise shortly after midnight and was attacked by two armed men –and forced at gunpoint to remain silent. Shortly thereafter she heard one gunshot from their bedroom, according to a statement by the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union. Mrs Joubert’s handbag was robbed – containing some American dollars and three cellphones. Their laptop computer also was robbed. While the gang was looting the lights went out and the attackers then fled the homestead. Mrs Joubert rushed to her husband but found that he was shot dead. Neighbours alerted the local police. Mr Joubert is survived by his wife, a son in Australia and a daughter in Zimbabwe. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bekende-Zim-tabakboer-op-sy-plaas-doodgeskiet-20101027
South African farm murder death toll: list of murder-victims’ names:
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Man jailed in Heidelberg: sold illegal poison Two-Step used to poison dogs
Heidelberg, South Africa. In one of the first such cases, Johannes Petrus Mashigo, a black Heidelberg informal trader, was jailed for a year for illegally selling the agricultural poison Aldikarb, which is illegally imported from the USA by the containerloads.
- The country’s tens of thousands of armed criminal gangs use this powerful poison to kill dogs at the homes and farms of people they are planning to attack: often they will ‘silence an entire street’ to attack one specific white family, the court heard.
Mashigo was caught with 15 bags of Aldikarb - each containing just a few grams of the poison: enough pellets to poison several dogs. Informal traders often sell the little bags to people at taxi-stands, purportedly to kill rats with.
Aldikarb is a registered agricultural poison which is known in street-jargon as “Two-Step” because criminal gangs often poison guard-dogs at targetted homes, smallholdings and farms before striking at sleeping families – in fact they often ‘silence’ an entire street by poisoning all the dogs before striking one specific home.
Imported illegally in containers from USA:
Tim Snow of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Poison Working Group has been warning repeatedly that tons of illicit Aldicarb/Two Step poisons, imported by the container-loads from the USA, are for sale at taxi-ranks and in muti-shops – and are used specifically to poison dogs in suburban areas. http://www.wingshooters.co.za/pdf/articles/Poisons-Enough%20is%20Enough.pdf
- 2009 Citizens’ initiative in Heidelberg against dog-poisonings:
- Last year in Heidelberg, local residents organised Heidelberg Police Community Forum meetings during which statistics were collected from residents about their own experiences with dog poisonings: a shocking total of 500 dogs were reportedly poisoned according to just one local veterinarian. The local residents heard at the meeting that the forum members had managed to gather their own reliable information after police had failed to solve any of these cases – and obtained proof that a specific organised crime syndicate from the nearby Ratanda squatter camp was responsible for these mass-poisonings, always carried out before crime-sprees. However, residents said when they took the tip-offs from a reliable source – who’d risked his life to help them -- to the local Heidelberg police’s organised crime branch, they weren’t interested, saying that ‘this was not their job’. Obviously, this initiative has worked: the Heidelberg police has now arrested at least one of the people who were selling the poison.
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On Tuesday, Heidelberg Magistrate Gerhard Strydom sentenced Johannes Petrus Mashigo to two years in prison – of which one year was suspended for five years: provided he does not commit the same offence again. “One gets cold chills down your spine when you hear the details of the toxicity of these poisons and the widespread problem they cause in South Africa,’ said Strydom.
43 dogs poisoned in Heidelberg in past 22 months says police – 500 dogs poisoned say residents and a local vet:
Expert witness testimony was submitted by Dr Gerhard Verdoorn who testified to its extreme toxicity and Heidelberg SAPS warrant-officer Bernard Raubenheimer.
There is a discrepancy in the statistics submitted in Raubenheimer ‘s report: he claimed that in Heidelberg alone, 43 dogs were poisoned over the past 22 months: however the police-community forum statistics claimed that some 500 dogs were poisoned in 2009 alone. The dogs usually are poisoned from three to 14 days before the planned crime. Usually pellets of Aldikarb are placed inside sausages and thrown into the yard where the dogs live. There’s a time-pattern too: these poisonings are usually done between 22:00 and 6:00 and often on Sunday nights. Criminals will often ‘silence an entire street’ by poisoning all the dogs before striking at a specific residence or homestead, testified Raubenheimer.
Strydom said that he is taking into consideration the fact that while Mashigo did not poison any dogs himself, he sold the means with which the animals were murdered in order to commit violent crimes thereafter. “If one examines the seriousness of this offence, a completely-suspended sentence would not be appropriate as an example must be made to members of the community.” He sentenced him to the maximum-prison sentence allowed for such an offence: two years maximum, one year suspended.
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