A 54-year-old Zimbabwean truck driver has been convicted in South Africa and ordered to pay a R10 million fine or serve five years in prison after illicit cigarettes worth more than R10.4 million were found in his tanker at the Musina-Beitbridge border post.

The Hawks, South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, said Godknows Mangani Demanyundo was sentenced by the Giyani Magistrate’s Court. He was arrested on 10 June 2025. Hawks spokesperson Colonel Avele Fumba said the case began when a South African Revenue Service (SARS) cargo analyst spotted suspicious images during routine scanning and alerted a team leader, who notified the police.

A joint physical inspection by South African Police Service and Border Management Authority officials then found 500 master boxes, seven cartons and six packets of Chelsea cigarettes, valued at more than R10.4 million, according to the Hawks. Local Criminal Record Centre members documented the evidence before the arrest, and the Hawks took over the investigation.

Besides the fine, the court ordered the cigarettes, the truck and the tanker trailer used to carry them forfeited to the state. Demanyundo was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.

The Hawks’ Limpopo head, Major General Gobz Govender, praised the agencies involved and said an arrest is not the end of an investigation, adding that the Hawks would follow the evidence wherever it led.

The conviction was reported by IOL, The Herald and NewZimbabwe.com, the last of which carried a report from The Citizen. The Herald said the driver was convicted on Tuesday; IOL reported that the Hawks confirmed the conviction on Wednesday.

Sources: Hawks statement as reported by IOL, The Herald and NewZimbabwe.com (citing The Citizen).

A trial date has been set in the case of Dr Fortune Gomo, the Zimbabwean scientist killed in Dundee, Scotland, in July last year.

A 21-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to murdering Dr Gomo, 39, and to a separate charge of having a knife in a public place, according to The Scotsman and Voice Online. Prosecutors allege she was repeatedly struck on the body with a knife in Dundee on 5 July 2025. They say the attack was aggravated by prejudice relating to race, nationality or ethnicity. The accused is not named here because the two outlets spell his name differently.

Both outlets report that the trial is due to begin in January 2028 at the High Court in Dundee.

Dr Gomo was an environmental and water resources scientist who had recently started work with Scottish Water. Both outlets say she held a PhD from the University of Dundee. The Scotsman reports she had studied in both Scotland and Zimbabwe, graduating from the National University of Science and Technology in Zimbabwe; it cites social media for her academic record.

The accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and no evidence has yet been tested in court.

Sources: The Scotsman; Voice Online.

Zimbabwean Grade 12 pupils who left South Africa during this year’s anti-immigrant upheaval may be helped to return and sit their final school examinations next month — though the two organisations involved have given noticeably different accounts of how settled the arrangement actually is.

The Zimbabwe Exemption Permit Coordinating Committee (ZEPCC), an advocacy group for permit holders and their families, told TimesLIVE on 8 September that it had engaged with 120 matric pupils who failed to register for their examinations because of xenophobia and bullying at school, and that it had made arrangements with education authorities to get them registered. Its national coordinator, Edward Muchatita, said the pupils would be housed at a boarding facility whose location was being withheld for security reasons, with the committee covering accommodation and revision classes.

South Africa’s Department of Basic Education put it more cautiously. Speaking to EWN two days later, Lukhanyo Vangqa, spokesperson for the basic education minister, said the plan remained in draft form and had not been approved. It still has to go before the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Immigration and be discussed with the qualifications council Umalusi before the minister makes a final decision.

Vangqa said ZEPCC’s figure stood at about 149 when the department last checked, and that the number shifts as individual cases surface.

He also sought to correct a widespread misunderstanding: pupils do not need South African identity documents to write the National Senior Certificate. Some form of identification is required, but an affidavit will serve, and teachers at a school a pupil has attended for more than a year can attest to their identity. The checks exist to stop impersonation, he said, not to shut anyone out.

What cannot be bent is geography. The NSC is governed by the South African Schools Act, which applies only inside South Africa, so any pupil hoping to write must physically return and sit the papers at an accredited centre. The first examination is set for 13 October, leaving officials little room.

Sources: EWN; TimesLIVE.