UPDATE:
Murder Charges Dropped Against South African Miners
By LYDIA POLGREEN
September 2, 2012
JOHANNESBURG – Prosecutors provisionally dropped murder charges against the 270 jailed miners who had been accused under an obscure legal doctrine of killing 34 of their own colleagues when the police opened fire on them while engaged in a wildcat strike.
The police fired live ammunition into a crowd of about 3,000 platinum miners armed with clubs and machetes while trying to disperse the illegal strike on Aug. 16. When the firing stopped, 34 miners were dead and South Africa was outraged by the bloodiest confrontation between police and civilians since the end of apartheid. The police have claimed they acted in self-defense.
The outrage grew when prosecutors announced last week that under a legal doctrine known as “common purpose,” the miners themselves would be charged with murdering their colleagues. Under the doctrine, which was frequently used in the waning days of apartheid to charge members of protesting crowds with serious crimes committed by a few individuals, people in a mob can be charged as accomplices.
In a hastily arranged news conference Sunday, officials from the National Prosecuting Authority said that they would await the outcome of further investigations into the shootings, but did not rule out bringing murder charges again...
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Murder charges stun and enrage South African miners
LYDIA POLGREEN
LUANDA — The New York Times News Service
Aug. 30 2012
Two weeks after the police opened fire on a crowd of 3,000 workers engaged in a wildcat strike at a platinum mine near Johannesburg, killing 34 people in the bloodiest labour unrest since the end of apartheid, prosecutors are bringing murder charges against a surprising set of suspects: the miners themselves.
Using an obscure legal doctrine frequently relied upon by the apartheid government in its dying days, prosecutors did not accuse the police officers who shot and killed the strikers as they surged forward, machetes in hand. Instead, officials said Thursday that they were pursuing murder charges against the 270 miners who were arrested after the dust settled and the shooting stopped.
It was the latest astonishing turn in a saga that has gripped South Africa, unleashing a torrent of rage over deepening inequality, poverty and unemployment.
The shootings have fed a growing sense of betrayal at the country’s governing party, the venerable African National Congress, many of whose senior members have joined a wealthy elite a world away from the downtrodden masses whose votes brought them to office at the end of apartheid in 1994. Now the prosecutors’ decision to charge the miners in the killings threatened to intensify that rift.
Showing posts with label mass murder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mass murder. Show all posts
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Pittsburg Fitness Center killer George Sodini wrote a blog
George Sodini's Blog, Full Text By Alleged Gym Shooter
Online Diary Apparently Kept by Alleged Pittsburgh-Area Health Club Killer
ABC News
August 5, 2009
A gunman walked into a Bridgeville, Pa., health club tonight, turned out the lights and opened fire, witnesses of the shocking attack said.The shooting left five people dead -- including the shooter, a law enforcement source told ABC News radio. Up to 15 others have been reported injured.
Following is text of a blog kept by George Sodini, the man suspected of opening fire in a Pittsburgh-area gym, killing three and injuring at least 15 others before apparently turning a gun on himself.
BLOG:
George Sodini
Age 48.
DOB 9/30/1960
DOD 8/4/2009
5-10, 155 lbs.
Never married.
...Tetelestai Church in Pittsburgh, PA - "Be Ye Holy, even as I have been Ye holy! Thus saith the lord thy God!", as pastor Rick Knapp would proclaim. Holy ----, religion is a waste. But this guy teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven. Ask him. Call him at [phone number]. If no answer there, he should still live at [address]. In any case, guilt and fear kept me there 13 long years until Nov 2006. I think his crap did the most damage. Their web site: http://www.tetelestai.org.
...Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them...
RELATED STORY:
A powerful right-wing Christian group called the family, to which several prominent politicians belong, also twists the concept of predestination. The "Family" helped Senator John Ensign, Rep. Chip Pickering and Governor Mark Sanford with recent sex scandals.
The "Family" believes that if you're chosen, the rules don't apply
...David Coe, Doug Coe's son and heir apparent... Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply...
Online Diary Apparently Kept by Alleged Pittsburgh-Area Health Club Killer
ABC News
August 5, 2009
A gunman walked into a Bridgeville, Pa., health club tonight, turned out the lights and opened fire, witnesses of the shocking attack said.The shooting left five people dead -- including the shooter, a law enforcement source told ABC News radio. Up to 15 others have been reported injured.
Following is text of a blog kept by George Sodini, the man suspected of opening fire in a Pittsburgh-area gym, killing three and injuring at least 15 others before apparently turning a gun on himself.
BLOG:
George Sodini
Age 48.
DOB 9/30/1960
DOD 8/4/2009
5-10, 155 lbs.
Never married.
...Tetelestai Church in Pittsburgh, PA - "Be Ye Holy, even as I have been Ye holy! Thus saith the lord thy God!", as pastor Rick Knapp would proclaim. Holy ----, religion is a waste. But this guy teaches (and convinced me) you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven. Ask him. Call him at [phone number]. If no answer there, he should still live at [address]. In any case, guilt and fear kept me there 13 long years until Nov 2006. I think his crap did the most damage. Their web site: http://www.tetelestai.org.
...Maybe soon, I will see God and Jesus. At least that is what I was told. Eternal life does NOT depend on works. If it did, we will all be in hell. Christ paid for EVERY sin, so how can I or you be judged BY GOD for a sin when the penalty was ALREADY paid. People judge but that does not matter. I was reading the Bible and The Integrity of God beginning yesterday, because soon I will see them...
RELATED STORY:
A powerful right-wing Christian group called the family, to which several prominent politicians belong, also twists the concept of predestination. The "Family" helped Senator John Ensign, Rep. Chip Pickering and Governor Mark Sanford with recent sex scandals.
The "Family" believes that if you're chosen, the rules don't apply
...David Coe, Doug Coe's son and heir apparent... Attempting to explain what it means to be chosen for leadership like King David was -- or Mark Sanford, according to his own estimate -- he asked a young man who'd put himself, body and soul, under the Family's authority, "Let's say I hear you raped three little girls. What would I think of you?" The man guessed that Coe would probably think that he was a monster. "No," answered Coe, "I wouldn't." Why? Because, as a member of the Family, he's among what Family leaders refer to as the "new chosen." If you're chosen, the normal rules don't apply...
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