SA manhunt for armed, French killer-couple

Police hunt armed French cultist couple Phillipe and Agnes Nenière

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Sutherland, North Cape. An 18-member joint SAPS task team aided by two helicopters, are hunting for a French couple described as ‘armed, dangerous cultists”.  Greyhaired Phillipe, 60, and Agnes Nenière, 58, expert survivalists and wearing camouflage clothes, fled from a Sutherland sheep-farm after shooting dead student-constable Jacob Boleme, 26 and injuring officer Glenwald Du Toit on Friday-afternoon. http://www.rapport.co.za/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Polisie-jag-gevaarlike-Franse-egpaar-20110115

There is uncertainty about the correct spelling of their surname: the Weekend Argus spells their surname as Nenière. The couple are said to belong to the “Ramtha school of enlightenment’, an ‘end-times’ cult located in rural Yelm, Washington State, USA in 1988, writes the Weekend Argus. above.

In the past two years the couple’s behaviour had become increasingly bizarre and exclusive and their Afrikaner hosts, the four-member Du Plessis family, had become increasingly concerned about their odd behaviour.

Julian Jansen also describes in Rapport Afrikaans daily that the French couple had fled after shooting the police-officers and at the farmers. The shooting occurred after the police had raided their rental-cottage with a legal warrant in search of an illegal arms-cache and confiscated some of their weapons, said SAPS Lt-col Hendrik Swart.

The  farm owner Gerhard du Plessis had tried to have the couple vacate the rental cottage on his farm voluntarily, offering to give them financial assistance to do so: they'd lived there for free about ten years. Initially they had been friends of the Du Plessis family. However contact waned over the past two years and the couple became very isolated. When Mr Du Plessis wanted to repair the cottage to house his sons Jaen, 26, and Cobus, 28, he'd asked the couple to vacate it - and Mr Manière had 'become arrogant” and refused his request to leave.

Mr Du Plessis became concerned and contacted the police, informing them that he suspected that the French couple may have an illegal arms-cache on his property. Four police officers showed up at the cottage on Friday-afternoon at 2pm with a search-warrant, and did confiscate several weapons. However while they were arresting Mr Manière, his wife fired shots towards the police-officers from the cottage while  Mr Manière at the same time, grabbed a policeman's gun and shot dead student-constable Jacob Boleme, 27. A spent 9mm cartridge was found on the scene later. The couple then grabbed the guns from the cops and fired at them with their own guns as well as at Mr Du Plessis and his sons before chasing off with Mr Du Plessis' bakkie through the veldt. The bakkie got stuck whereupon Mr Manière shot the tyres to shreds with a .308-hunting rifle before they fled into the mountainous terrain on foot.  They have no food-supplies with them but are described by Helen Bamford in the Weekend Argus as ‘survival experts’.The injured police officers and the farmers were given assistance by passersby on the nearby dirt-road leading to the farm.

Early on Saturday-morning the SAPS 18-member task force, including two skilled field-trackers, set out in search of the fugitives.Swart said the hilly terrain and the fact that the couple are armed are making their task more difficult.

Mr Manière was described as speaking English with a heavy French accent: he's thin, has thin white hair and wears spectacles. His wife also is thin and both wore camouflage clothing when they fled. The injured police officer reportedly was in satisfactory condition at a Cape Hospital. http://www.rapport.co.za/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Polisie-jag-gevaarlike-Franse-egpaar-20110115

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Arms stash seized in Cape Town

January 15 2011 – DURBANVILLE. In a seperate development, Western Cape. Local police have seized a large arms-cache on a Durbanville farm on Friday. The  assortment of explosives, firearms, ammunition and replica firearms two pistols, two rifles, a shotgun, a rifle barrel, a firearm frame without a barrel, two deactivated rifles, six magazines, nine empty shotgun shelves, 655 mixed live rounds, 14 rifle replicas, a teargas canister and a green ammunition case, Warrant Officer November Filander said. Police opened an docket for possession of illegal firearms and ammunition. “Of concern to the SAPS is the discovery of replica firearm devices in the lot, Filander said. Members of the public were warned that the illegal possession of replica firearm devices was a punishable offence, he said. - Sapa http://www.capeargus.co.za/arms-stash-seized-in-cape-town-1.1012384

 

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