Latest news with #LouisLiebenberg
IOL News
26-05-2025
- IOL News
Desiree Liebenberg's bail appeal rejected
Louis Liebenberg's wife Desiree Liebenberg will await her trial in jail after the high court turned down her appeal against the refusal to grant her bail. Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers In yet another blow for Desiree Liebenberg, wife of diamond dealer Louis Liebenberg, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, turned down her appeal bid against the earlier refusal to grant her bail. The Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate's Court in November refused her bail as it found that she is a flight risk. The lower court also found that she did not play open cards about where she would stay if she was granted bail. On Friday, Judge Mashudu Munzhelele found that the magistrate did not err in refusing bail for Liebenberg. Apart from the fact that it is still vague as to which address she will reside if she was to be released, the judge also found that the State had a strong case against her. She was arrested in October last year, alongside her husband, relating to charges including racketeering, money laundering, fraud, theft, and corruption. In opposing bail, the State said it had a strong case against her and that it is not in the interest of justice to be released while awaiting trial. It also argued that she was a flight risk because she had access to at least R200 million that her husband claims to have hidden away from authorities. While Liebenberg said the investigating officer did confirm her residential address, the State argued that she gave two residential addresses to the investigating team to verify. One is a rented property in Bronkhorstspruit and the other a rental in Bloemfontein. While Liebenberg was said to have stayed with her husband in the Bronkhorstspruit property, the Bloemfontein one was apparently only used for her immovable property. Liebenberg provided the court with a third address and a statement from a friend who is willing to let her stay with them if she was to be released on bail. But the State also objected to this, as this address was never given to the investigating officer to verify. The court was told that given the fact that the Liebenberg couple had employed bodyguards to keep them safe before their arrest and statements made to court that they lived in fear, the State said if she was to be released, she would clearly have to go into hiding. It was also argued that Liebenberg tried to mislead the court about her employment, as she mentioned directorship of only three of her husband's companies, while she was allegedly the director of 18 companies. Louis will meanwhile return to the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate's Court on July 8, when he is expected to apply for bail. This is after he had earlier abandoned his bail application. The couple, together with their co-accused; Magdelena Petronella Kleynhans, Johannes Petrus Badenhorst, Helena Dorothea Amy Schulenburg, Adriaan Dewald Strydom, Christelle Badenhorst, Nicolize van Heerden, and Walter Niendinger, are still to plead on the 42 charges against them.
IOL News
25-05-2025
- IOL News
Desiree Liebenberg's bail appeal rejected by the high court
Louis Liebenberg's wife Desiree Liebenberg will await her trial in jail after the high court turned down her appeal against the refusal to grant her bail. Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers In yet another blow for Desiree (Dezzi) Liebenberg, wife of diamond dealer Louis Liebenberg, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, turned down her appeal bid against the earlier refusal to grant her bail. The Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate's Court in November refused her bail as it found that she is a flight risk. The lower court also found that she did not play open cards about where she would stay if she was granted bail. On Friday, Judge Mashudu Munzhelele found that the magistrate did not err in refusing bail for Dezzi. Apart from the fact that it is still vague as to which address she will reside if she was to be released, the judge also found that the State had a strong case against her. She was arrested in October last year, alongside her husband, relating to charges which include racketeering, money laundering, fraud, theft, and corruption. In opposing bail, the State said it had a strong case against her and that it is not in the interest of justice to be released while awaiting trial. It also argued that she was a flight risk because she had access to at least R200 million that her husband claims to have hidden away from authorities. While Dezzi said the investigating officer did confirm her residential address, the State argued that she gave two residential addresses to the investigating team to verify. One is a rented property in Bronkhorstspruit and the other a rental in Bloemfontein. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad Loading While Dezzi was said to have stayed with her husband Louis in the Bronkhorstspruit property, the Bloemfontein one was apparently only used for her immovable property. Dezzi provided the court with a third address and a statement from a friend who is willing to let her stay with them if she was to be released on bail. But the State also objected to this, as this address was never given to the investigating officer to verify. The court was told that given the fact that the Liebenberg couple had employed bodyguards to keep them safe before their arrest and statements made to court that they lived in fear, the State said if she was to be released, she would clearly have to go into hiding. It was also argued that Dezzi tried to mislead the court about her employment, as she mentioned directorship of only three of her husband's companies, while she was allegedly the director of 18 companies. Louis will meanwhile return to the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate's Court on July 8, when he is expected to apply for bail. This is after he had earlier abandoned his bail application. The couple, together with their co-accused; Magdelena Petronella Kleynhans, Johannes Petrus Badenhorst, Helena Dorothea Amy Schulenburg, Adriaan Dewald Strydom, Christelle Badenhorst, Nicolize van Heerden, and Walter Niendinger, are still to plead on the 42 charges against them.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
First fossil hyena tracks found in South Africa – how expert animal trackers helped
'The art of tracking may well be the origin of science.' This is the departure point for a 2013 book by Louis Liebenberg, co-founder of an organisation devoted to environmental monitoring. The connection between tracking in nature, as people have done since prehistory, and 'western' science is of special interest to us as ichnologists. (Ichnology is the study of tracks and traces.) We learned our skills relatively late in life. But imagine if we had learned as children and if, as adults, we tracked as if our lives depended on it? What additional visual and cognitive talents would we bring to our field work as scientists? Our mission is to find and document the fossilised tracks and traces of creatures that existed during part of the Pleistocene Epoch, between 35,000 and 400,000 years ago, on the Cape coast of South Africa. Since 2008, through the Cape South Coast Ichnology project, based in the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University, more than 370 vertebrate tracksites have been identified. They have substantially complemented the traditional record of body fossils. Examples include trackways of giant tortoises and giraffe. Given the challenges inherent in identifying such tracks, we wondered how hunters who've been tracking all their lives would view our work, and how age-old indigenous expertise might align with our approach. Fortunately we could call on experts with these skills in southern Africa. The Ju/'hoansi (pronounced 'Juun-kwasi') San people of north-eastern Namibia are perhaps the last of southern Africa's indigenous inhabitants who retain the full suite of their ancient environmental skills. The Nyae Nyae conservancy in which they live gives them access to at least some of their historical land with its remaining wildlife. They still engage in subsistence hunting with bow and poisoned arrow and gather food that's growing wild. A handful among them have been recognised as Indigenous Master Tracker, a title created by Liebenberg's CyberTracker initiative in recognition of their top-flight hunter-gatherer status. And so, late in 2023, the Master Trackers #oma ('Komma') Daqm and /uce ('Tchu-shey') Nǂamce arrived in Cape Town. We were not the first to think along these lines. Ju/'hoansi Master Trackers have assisted scientists in the interpretation of hominin tracksites in French caves, and prehistoric tracks in the rock art record in Namibia. However, we knew that our often poorly preserved tracksites in aeolianites (cemented dunes) might present a stiffer challenge. Our purpose was to compare our own interpretations of fossil trackways with those of the Master Trackers, and possibly find some we had overlooked. As we've set out in a recently published paper with the Ju/'hoansi trackers and our colleague Jan De Vynck as co-authors, they did exactly this, confirming the first fossil hyena trackway ever to be found. The Late Pleistocene is not that far distant from the present (a mere 125,000 years), and many of the species that made tracks on the Cape south coast then are still with us. Some are extinct but have recognisable tracks, like the giant long-horned buffalo and giant Cape zebra. We knew, though, that tracking in Kalahari sand, like the Ju/'hoansi do, is not the same as tracking on Pleistocene rock surfaces. Many of our tracks are preserved on the undersides of ceilings and overhangs, or are evident in profile in cliff exposures. Our track-bearing surfaces are usually small, and present no associated signs. We can't follow the spoor for any distance. We don't know at what time of day the tracks were made or the role of dew, and we have never succeeded in actually tracking down our quarry. Coprolites – fossilised droppings – are seldom found conveniently beside the tracks of the depositor. We showed our new colleagues known fossil tracksites, without providing our own interpretations. #oma and /uce discussed these between themselves and presented their conclusions about what had made the tracks and how the animal had been behaving. We then shared our insights and our 3D photogrammetry data where applicable, and reached joint conclusions. Soon they were identifying freshly exposed tracksites without our input, and were providing fascinating, new interpretations for sites which had puzzled us. For example, they saw ostrich tracks which we had missed, beside ostrich egg remnants, and concluded that we were probably looking at a fossilised ostrich nest. On another occasion they pointed out the distinctive track pattern of a scrub hare on the hanging wall of an eroded piece of cliff. One of the most memorable experiences involved a 400,000-year-old trackway on a rock surface at Dana Bay, identified a few years earlier by local geologists Aleck and Ilona Birch. This rock had only been transiently exposed for a few days in the past decade, usually being covered by beach sand. Our earlier interpretation had been that the trackmaker might have been a hyena, probably the brown hyena. We were vindicated when our master tracker colleagues independently reached the identical conclusion. Examining our digital 3D images together fortified our collective judgement. This was a big deal: it was the first fossil hyena trackway to be confidently identified, as previous examples had involved only individual tracks or poorly preserved possible trackway segments. Hyena trackways are distinctive: the forefoot tracks are substantially larger than those of the hindfoot. Both of us are privileged to have university degrees and institutional affiliations. But there is another way in which acumen can be measured: the ability to use the ancient methods of discernment and pattern recognition to support and feed one's family and community through tracking, hunting and gathering. What we have demonstrated, we believe, is a novel confluence of old and new ways to reveal fascinating features of the past. We use geological understanding, satellite technology, paleontological databases, tracking manuals and sophisticated dating methods. But hunter-gatherers see what escapes us and our drones: obscure strokes and enigmatic configurations on time-beaten surfaces. They tap an alternative knowledge base, both culturally received and cultivated from childhood. The follow-through challenge must be to develop this partnership for mutual discovery and reward, understanding the past to better equip us for our uncertain future. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Charles Helm, Nelson Mandela University and Clive Thompson, Nelson Mandela University Read more: Tracking science: a way to include more people in producing knowledge African communities have a lot of knowledge to share: researchers offer alternatives to Eurocentric ways of doing things Traditional farming knowledge should be stored for future use: the technology to do this is available Clive Thompson is a trustee of the Discovery Wilderness Trust, a non-profit organization that supports environmental conservation and the fostering of tracking skills. Charles Helm does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
