Vanderbijlpark preschool teacher Tharina Human and two co-accused are due to appear in the magistrate’s court on Thursday to make bail applications after being arrested in connection with the kidnapping of Amy’Leigh de Jager, 6. Human, 27, Laetitia Nel, 40, and Pieter van Zyl, 50, all of Vanderbijlpark, have been in custody since their arrest shortly after Amy’Leigh’s safe return to her family.
Amy’Leigh’s parents Wynand and Angeline de Jager arrived at court early. They were initially seated in the front row of the courtroom, making small talk while waiting for proceedings to begin. The couple later moved to the second row, shielding their faces behind other family members.
Christo de Jager, the grandfather of Amy’Leigh, has also arrived at court and had taken a seat in the second row next to her parents.
Riaan Botha, the father of one of the accused, Tharina Human, was also spotted in the gallery. The court is on Thursday expected to first hear an application brought by Media24 to have proceedings livestreamed. The trio’s alleged kidnap and ransom scheme was set in motion when four men grabbed the grade R pupil from her mother, Angeline, outside the gates of Laerskool Kollegepark. They bundled her into a white Toyota Fortuner before speeding off.
Police, private security firms and the community of Vanderbijlpark scrambled to block exits to the town in the wake of her snatching, shortly before her father, Wynand, received the chilling ransom demand.
Police hostage negotiators, in brokering her safe return, bartered down the ransom demand from R2m to just R6,000 before the little girl was found wandering the streets of Vanderbijlpark in the early hours of Tuesday.
The Sunday Times reported that the hysterical child was found by a couple, Hendrik Breedt and Savannah Kriel, who were making their way home from a neighbourhood pub. Their discovery brought the hostage drama to an end.
Human is the prime suspect: She was employed by the school, teaching Amy’Leigh’s brother, Jayden, 5, and was “best friends” with the children’s mother. At their previous court appearance, she was supported by her father. Outside court, Botha said he had visited his daughter in prison and had been hoping for her release from custody then. But: “I was prepared that should it not happen, I leave it to God, because he has the last say.
In other news – DR Congo troops shoot dead Rwandan warlord
The FDLR was created by Rwandan Hutu refugees in eastern DRC after the genocide of Tutsis by majority Hutus in Rwanda in 1994. A Rwandan Hutu rebel leader wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crime charges has been shot dead by the Congolese army, a DRC military spokesperson said on Wednesday in what Kigali called “good news for peace”.
Sylvestre Mudacumura, commander of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), was “definitively neutralised” in DRC’s North Kivu province on Tuesday night, General Leon-Richard Kasonga said. Mudacumura, wanted for charges including rape, torture and pillage, was killed about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the capital of the province Goma. Read more
Source: Timeslive