I returned from holiday on Monday to find that there are quite a few careful readers out there. It was as if I’d said there would be a test of who had been reading their Courier.
What strikes you as odd about this snippet from last week’s crime report: “A resident of Shayamoya shot an intruder trying to break into his house. He was charged with murder, while the deceased was charged with housebreaking and possession of an unlicensed firearm.”
Well, several readers emailed and phoned to ask how a dead person could be charged with housebreaking etc. I must agree, on face value is seems pretty strange. By rights a person should be able to face his accuser in court, and that now might be difficult.
I asked a very experienced lawyer if these were legitimate charges. He said the murder charge was routine, but that the cops needed their heads read for charging a dead man. The other lawyer he was with laughed like a hyena, which you might say is entirely in character.
Anyhow, we asked the cops why they had handled the matter this way. The answer was, to assist the homeowner in defeating the murder charge – to prove that he had been facing a very real threat to his safety.
I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be easier to say: “Here is a man whose life was threatened by an armed burglar. The homeowner defended his life and property, the burglar got what he deserved.”
But cops can’t be judge and jury, so to speak, and there may be a good explanation for it. Perhaps its like some people underline things twice when they’re telling you something is important – the cops need to send a message further down the line that the homeowner was provoked. I’ve asked the police media people to shed more light, but they’re a bit slow in coming back. I’ll keep you posted.
However, while most people would consider it impossible to bring a dead person to trial, it has been done before. But you have to be Pope to do it.
Way back in the 9th Century, the Holy Roman Empire were top dogs and the politics of the Roman Catholic Church could be quite violent. No need to go into all the details, but when Pope Formosus settled his bum on the papal throne in 891, it was after a long and bitter wrangle with the previous pope, John VIII.
He only lasted five years and when he died, Pope Stephen VI, who had been a John fan, decided the church wasn’t finished with Formosus. So in 897 the corpse was dug up, dressed in papal vestments, and seated on a throne to face all the charges from John VIII. The court found him guilty, surprise, surprise. “What does the accused have to say? Nothing? Must be guilty then!”
All his measures and acts were annulled and the orders conferred by him were declared invalid. The papal vestments were torn from his body, the three fingers from his right hand that he had used in consecrations were cut off and the corpse was thrown into the Tiber (later to be retrieved by a monk).
After Stephen died, they all decided that Formosus hadn’t been such a bad guy after all, and the body was reinterred in St Peter’s Basilica. You’d think that was that then. But no, Popes were a vindictive lot back then. Along comes Pope Sergius III (904–911) who said no, he’d been guilty as sin and had poor old Formosus dug up again, tried, found guilty again, and beheaded!
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Take a look at this sign, from the Umhlali Country Club. What I would like to know is why parking is particularly risky for golf balls and not the others who use the parking lot? Presumably they drive Citi Golfs?

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Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the ice in Antarctica? Where do they go? Well, wonder no more.
It is a known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird which lives an extremely ordered and complex life. The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life, as well as maintaining a form of compassionate contact with its offspring throughout its life.
If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the ice. They will use their vestigial wings and beaks until the hole is deep enough for the dead bird to be rolled into the hole and buried.
The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave and sing….
“Freeze a jolly good fellow,
“Freeze a jolly good fellow.”
. . and kick him in the icehole.