CAPE TOWN: In a case that has gripped South Africa, the 22-year-old scion of a wealthy family goes on trial in Cape Town on Monday, accused of slaughtering his family in a frenzied axe attack.
The case has also made headlines internationally, as police failed to arrest anyone for the grisly killings until Henri van Breda handed himself in.
Van Breda is alleged to have killed his brother Rudi and parents Martin and Teresa and left his sister Marli struggling with injuries.
The events took place at the family’s luxury home at an exclusive golf estate in Stellenbosch outside Cape Town, where they lived after returning from several years in Australia. The family’s fortune is estimated at $16 million.
Van Breda faces three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.
In the courtroom, prosecutors will probe what happened in the fateful early hours of Jan. 27, 2015.
According to media reports, Rudi, a 21-year-old engineering student, was found on a blood-soaked bed next to his father, 54.
Both were killed by savage blows from the axe.
His mother, 55, was found with a gaping head wound on the bedroom’s balcony.
Marli, 18, suffered horrific brain, throat and neck injuries.
Van Breda called the emergency services some hours after the attack.
In a leaked tape of the call, he said his family members were “bleeding from the head” before he appeared to giggle briefly.
He himself had minor bruises and scratches, which experts say may have been self-inflicted.
Van Breda reportedly told detectives that a stranger was responsible for the attack in the high-security residential complex, while he hid in a bathroom.
Van Breda appeared in Western Cape High Court in Cape Town last month, when the state asked for more time to gather witness statements and prepare evidence.
Dressed in a suit, he appeared calm and expressionless during the hearing.
South African faces trial over slaying of his wealthy family
South African faces trial over slaying of his wealthy family
Japan grounds military training aircraft after crash leaves 2 crew members missing
- The crashed plane was a 36-year-old T-4 operated out of Nyutabaru Air Base
- It was not fitted with a voice recorder or a flight data recorder
TOKYO: Japan grounded most of its aging military training aircraft on Wednesday after one of the planes crashed minutes after take off.
Two crew are missing after the T-4 training aircraft operated by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force crashed after taking off from Komaki Air Base, in the central Japanese prefecture of Aichi, officials said.
The force said the plane was lost from radar two minutes after departure. The authorities are searching for the missing aircraft and its crew in an area near a reservoir known as the Iruka pond, officials said. The reservoir, in the city of Inuyama, is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of the air base.
The military has grounded temporarily nearly 200 T-4s until the cause of the accident is identified and safety checks and training are carried out, Hiroaki Uchikura, the air force chief of staff, told a news conference late Wednesday.
The crashed plane was a 36-year-old T-4 operated out of Nyutabaru Air Base, in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki. It was not fitted with a voice recorder or a flight data recorder.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani earlier Wednesday told reporters that parts of the aircraft have been found at the crash site. Officials were also preparing to collect fuel apparently leaked from the aircraft and floating in the reservoir, Nakatani said.
Lifesaving equipment and helmets of the crew were also found, Uchikura said.
Witnesses told the NHK national broadcaster that they heard a loud noise like thunder, followed by sirens of police cars and fire engines.
The T-4 was returning to Nyutabaru air base after its crew had earlier helped deliver a F-15 fighter jet to Komaki Air Base for scheduled maintenance, Uchikura said.
A captain with more than 1,000 hours of flight experience had piloted the F-15, while a first lieutenant piloted the T-4. Both were in the T-4 on their way back to Komaki when the incident happened.
The crash is the latest in a series of defense aircraft accidents in recent years.
In April 2024, two SH-60K navy reconnaissance helicopters crashed during nighttime anti-submarine training near Torishima island, about 600 kilometers south of Tokyo, leaving all eight crewmembers dead.
In 2023, an army UH-60JA Black Hawk helicopter on a reconnaissance mission crashed off a southern island of Miyako, with the loss of 10 crew.
UK’s Starmer condemns ‘attack on our democracy’ after fires at homes linked to him
Police said they have been granted a further 36 hours to question the man
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told lawmakers Wednesday that recent arson attacks on properties linked to him represent “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for.”
The remarks by Starmer during weekly prime minister’s questions were his first since the fires came to light earlier this week.
The attacks were condemned by leaders across the House of Commons, including the Conservative Party’s Kemi Badenoch, who described them as “completely unacceptable.”
On Tuesday, London’s Metropolitan Police arrested a 21-year-old man in southeast London on suspicion of starting fires at Starmer’s private house, another property and a car connected to the politician. No injuries were reported from any of the fires.
In a statement Wednesday, police said they have been granted a further 36 hours to question the man, who is being held at a London police station. That means he can be questioned until Friday morning.
Police said the suspect was detained on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after an early morning fire Monday damaged the door of the house in Kentish Town, north London, where Starmer and his family lived before he was elected to lead the country last July.
Starmer moved with his family to the prime minister’s official Downing Street residence after taking office.
Counterterrorism detectives, who are leading the investigation because it involves the prime minister, are also looking into connections between a car fire Thursday near Starmer’s house and another fire Sunday outside a house nearby that has been converted into apartments and which he has a connection to.
Authorities are investigating whether there was state involvement as well as looking at other potential motivations.
“A key line of enquiry is whether the fires are linked due to the two premises and the vehicle all having previous links to the same high-profile public figure,” said Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, head of counterterrorism at the Metropolitan Police.
Starmer’s former house has attracted protesters in the past. Last year, three pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and charged with public order offenses after unfurling a banner covered in red handprints outside the building.
How escaped French drug kingpin evaded capture for months
- His escape left two prison officers dead and triggered a massive manhunt for the escaped convict dubbed “la Mouche“
- A network of accomplices suspected of organizing the escape, including a childhood friend of Amra and rapper Koba LaD, allegedly helped the fugitive stay off the authorities’ radar
PARIS: Managing to stay “one step ahead” of investigators, drug trafficker Mohamed Amra evaded capture for nine months following a deadly jail break one year ago that shocked France.
His escape left two prison officers dead and triggered a massive manhunt for the escaped convict dubbed “la Mouche” (The Fly).
On the run for nine months, he was re-arrested only in February, near a shopping center in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, then extradited to France.
On the one-year anniversary of the attack, French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday paid tribute to the first prison officers killed in France in the line of duty since 1992, visiting the site of the attack and highlighting new measures in France’s push to combat organized crime.
On May 14, 2024, a car crashed head-on into a prison van at a toll booth in France’s northern Normandy region.
Moments later, a second car pulled up and four armed men jumped out, killing prison officers Arnaud Garcia and Fabrice Moello and leaving three others wounded.
At the time of the deadly ambush, Amra already had a long history of convictions for violent crimes that started when he was only 15.
After the assailants whisked the 30-year-old Normandy native into a waiting vehicle, French authorities launched a massive operation to track down the man described as “public enemy number one.”
But a source close to the case said Amra was “always one step ahead.”
Public prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed that the Frenchman had been holed up in the city of Compiegne, then headed further north to Rouen before eventually making his way to eastern Europe.
A network of accomplices suspected of organizing the escape, including a childhood friend of Amra and rapper Koba LaD, allegedly helped the fugitive stay off the authorities’ radar.
Even so, “the net gradually closed in,” said Beccuau, with the escapee arrested by Romanian authorities nine months after his getaway.
Authorities then intensified the search for those who aided him in his escape from France to the eastern European country, arresting more than three dozen alleged accomplices.
Among those arrested are the six suspected attackers in the May 2024 assault found as far afield as Thailand, Morocco and Spain — one of whom died in an accident in November.
But a lawyer for one of the accused said there are “real doubts” about their involvement, with some “categorically denying the charges.”
As for Amra, his lawyer said, “no one can claim to know his role.”
“The fact that he benefited from the escape doesn’t necessarily mean he planned it or knew what methods would be used,” said Lucas Montagnier.
Macron, accompanied by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, visited several sites on Wednesday underlining the country’s push to clamp down on drug trafficking, including the headquarters of a new anti-organized crime taskforce, EMCO and the site of the May 2024 attack.
In late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing being locked up in high-security units in prison in the coming months.
Amra was suspected of ordering hits from prison, including in the months leading up to his breakout, when a close associate issued a warning that “the Fly” was giving someone called “A” a week to pay up, or else.
A high-security prison in the northern Pas-de-Calais region is expected to house the 100 most dangerous drug traffickers beginning in late July.
With these measures, “the Republic is now putting all its resources” into ensuring that an escape like that of Mohamed Amra “never happens again,” Darmanin said on Tuesday on broadcaster France 2.
A plaque was also unveiled, honoring the two prison officers.
Sri Lanka to monitor bus drivers with AI after worst crash in decades
- Buses are to be equipped with driver monitoring systems from next year, Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake said
- “We are going to make AI-backed driver observation systems mandatory on all buses”
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will use artificial intelligence to monitor bus drivers and make seat belts mandatory on public transport, a government minister said on Wednesday, after the country’s worst bus crash in two decades killed 23 people.
The South Asian nation, which records an average of 3,000 road fatalities annually, has some of the most dangerous roads in the world.
Buses are to be equipped with driver monitoring systems from next year, while seat belts will become compulsory on public transport from June, Transport Minister Bimal Rathnayake told reporters in Colombo.
It came after an overcrowded bus carrying dozens of Buddhist pilgrims plummeted into a precipice on Sunday.
The changes are aimed at “educating motorists to develop a better driving culture and improving safety standards,” Rathnayake said.
“We are going to make AI-backed driver observation systems mandatory on all buses from next year, and we will expand them to all long-distance trucks as well.”
The minister said the cause of Sunday’s crash in the tea-growing mountainous region of Kotmale was still being investigated, but that two more passengers had died, raising the toll to 23.
Fifty-four passengers were admitted to hospital, Rathnayake said, adding that preliminary inquiries had found no immediate indication of driver error.
Another driver had reported a problem with the bus’s steering wheel the day before, but managers said it was attended to.
Sunday’s crash off a cliffside road was the deadliest recorded in Sri Lanka since April 2005.
The state-owned bus was carrying around 77 passengers — about 20 more than its capacity.
In March 2021, 13 passengers and the driver of a privately owned bus died when the vehicle crashed into a precipice in Passara, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of the site of Sunday’s crash.
Germany’s Merz calls for western unity on Ukraine on eve of peace talks
- Merz said the West could not accept a dictated peace for Ukraine or a submission to the status quo achieved by Russian military forces
- “Such a ceasefire can open a window in which peace negotiations become possible“
BERLIN: Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday urged the West not to be divided on Ukraine and said he was working to ensure unity between allies in Europe and the United States on how to end the war.
In his first major speech to parliament since taking office last week, Merz said the West could not accept a dictated peace for Ukraine or a submission to the status quo achieved by Russian military forces.
He was speaking a day before Ukrainian and Russian delegates could meet for peace talks in Istanbul, more than three years after the start of the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.
After winning elections in February, Merz has promised to give Germany a bigger role on the global stage and beef up its military through more defense spending. Though he has publicly castigated US President Donald Trump’s administration as an unreliable ally, in Wednesday’s speech he thanked Trump for his support in pushing for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“Such a ceasefire can open a window in which peace negotiations become possible,” he told parliament.
“It is of paramount importance that the political West does not allow itself to be divided, and therefore I will make every effort to continue to achieve the greatest possible unity between our European and American partners.”
“This terrible war and its outcome will not only determine the fate of Ukraine,” he added. “The outcome of this war will determine whether law and order will continue to prevail in Europe and the world, or whether tyranny, military force, and the sheer right of the strongest will prevail.”
Still, strengthening the German military is a top priority, Merz said.
“The government will provide all the financial resources that the Bundeswehr needs in order to become the strongest conventional army in Europe,” he said.
In his speech, Merz took blunt aim at Russia, accusing it of involvement in state-sponsored killings and poisoning in European cities, cyberattacks and the destruction of infrastructure, including undersea cables.
Merz was speaking as German prosecutors announced the arrest of three Ukrainians for their suspected involvement in the shipment of exploding parcels, after a series of fires at European courier depots pointed to suspected Russian sabotage.
Security officials told Reuters the exploding parcels were part of a test run for a Russian plot to trigger explosions on cargo flights to the United States. Russia has denied this and other accusations by Western countries of sabotage plots.
The growing closeness between Russia and China was also concerning, Merz added.
In a wide-ranging speech, Merz also rattled through his government’s policy priorities, from boosting growth in Europe’s largest economy to hardening its stance on migration. He stressed the latter would be done within the parameters of EU agreements, seeking to dispel fears that Germany would act unilaterally.
