Free at last after six-year kidnap ordeal at the hands of Islamists
21 December 2023 - 05:00
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Six years after being kidnapped in Libya, South African paramedic Gerco van Deventer, 48, was freed at the weekend, his release facilitated by Gift of the Givers. Van Deventer was seized in 2017 by an unnamed group and sold to militant Islamists linked to al-Qaeda in Mali, which then demanded a $500,000 ransom. Gift of the Givers, which oversaw his release on Mali’s border with Algeria, said he was returning to his wife and son in South Africa. The news was confirmed to the BBC by a Mali security source.
Picture: Brenton Geach
A bad week for Markus Jooste
Not even the southeaster that howls through his clifftop refuge in Hermanus would have put the wind up Markus Jooste as much as a recent announcement from Oldenburg in Germany. A prosecutor in that city’s regional court said an arrest warrant had been sought for the former Steinhoff CEO. This is the same court that sent former Steinhoff CFO Dirk Schreiber to jail in August. The warrant for Jooste won’t see him clapped in irons soon; extradition can be a tortuous process, as Ronald Lamola has found with the Guptas. But the law is closing in.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
A good week for Gerco van Deventer
Free at last after six-year kidnap ordeal at the hands of Islamists
A good week for Gerco van Deventer
Six years after being kidnapped in Libya, South African paramedic Gerco van Deventer, 48, was freed at the weekend, his release facilitated by Gift of the Givers. Van Deventer was seized in 2017 by an unnamed group and sold to militant Islamists linked to al-Qaeda in Mali, which then demanded a $500,000 ransom. Gift of the Givers, which oversaw his release on Mali’s border with Algeria, said he was returning to his wife and son in South Africa. The news was confirmed to the BBC by a Mali security source.
A bad week for Markus Jooste
Not even the southeaster that howls through his clifftop refuge in Hermanus would have put the wind up Markus Jooste as much as a recent announcement from Oldenburg in Germany. A prosecutor in that city’s regional court said an arrest warrant had been sought for the former Steinhoff CEO. This is the same court that sent former Steinhoff CFO Dirk Schreiber to jail in August. The warrant for Jooste won’t see him clapped in irons soon; extradition can be a tortuous process, as Ronald Lamola has found with the Guptas. But the law is closing in.
ALSO READ:
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IVO VEGTER: SA’s stance on Islamist extremism is dangerously conflicted
ROB ROSE: Scary October for Markus Jooste
EDITORIAL: South Africa’s white-collar fraud misfire
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