Publication: Cape Times Issued: Date: 2007-01-22 Reporter: Aziz Hartley

Board to Decide on Yengeni's Community Service this Week

 

Publication 

Cape Times
Date

2007-01-22

Reporter

 Aziz Hartley

Web Link

 www.capetimes.co.za

 

The Parole Board is to decide this week on the type of community service convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni is to perform, while the SPCA is to investigate the way the bull was treated before it was slaughtered at his parents' home in Gugulethu.

In reaching a decision, the board would study the report it was to receive from parole officers who had been following Yengeni's every move since he was released from the Malmesbury Prison last week, Department of Correctional Services spokesman Lumphumzo Kebeni said.

"The board will look at Mr Yengeni's skills, expertise and abilities and, based on these, decide how he can plough back into the community."

Yengeni is to perform community service during the year he is under correctional supervision.

Yengeni had travelled to Porterville with the knowledge of his parole officers to buy animals for slaughter at his cleansing ceremony on Saturday, Kebeni said.

He had been given permission for the trip and had been accompanied by a correctional services official.

On Friday, ID chief whip Lance Greyling demanded clarity on Yengeni's parole conditions. If Yengeni had violated his parole conditions by travelling hundreds of kilometres, he should be rearrested and jailed, he said.

Sources had told the ID they had spotted Yengeni at the Voorberg Prison, near Porterville, and that he was accompanied by the deputy director of the Malmesbury Prison.

"Our information is that after they arrived, the head of agriculture at the Voorberg jail joined them on a trip to a farm, where Yengeni apparently bought a (bull) for his traditional ceremony," Greyling said.

Kebeni said: "We are not so foolish as to bend the law *1. There was nothing wrong about the trip. (Yengeni's) parole conditions allow him to be outside the area - with permission, of course."

Meanwhile, the SPCA is to investigate at least one formal complaint it has received about the way the bull was treated before it was slaughtered. A photograph in a weekend newspaper showed it tied up with ropes in the yard of Yengeni's father's home.

"Depending on the outcome, we'll open a docket with police," SPCA chief executive Allan Perrins said.

"From the picture it seems there was unnecessary tying up of the animal and it was brutally restrained."

With acknowledgements to Fiona Forde and Cape Times.


*1       It is impossible that a 48 month sentence became a 4 month one without bending the law.