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CRIME

Second arrest in killing of Swedish honeymooner

Police in South Africa have arrested a second man in connection with the murder of a Swedish newlywed on her honeymoon in Cape Town, national police Commissioner Bheki Cele said Thursday.

Second arrest in killing of Swedish honeymooner

Cele spoke to journalists shortly after 26-year-old Xolile Mngeni, the first suspect arrested in the case, made a brief appearance in a Cape Town court and had his case postponed.

Cele said police might arrest “one or two more” suspects as investigations continue, the Sapa news agency reported.

Mngeni and his co-accused, whose name was not released, are accused of abducting 28-year-old Swede Anni Dewani and her British husband Shrien Dewani on the outskirts of Cape Town last Saturday.

The hijackers released the 31-year-old husband, but his wife’s body was later found in an impoverished township neighbourhood southeast of central Cape Town.

Mngeni has been charged with murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances, prosecutors said.

According to the newspaper Die Burger, Mngeni has admitted the murder to police, citing several media. However, there is no official confirmation from the police.

Mngeni was charged on Wednesday with Dewani’s murder.

His case was postponed to November 25 to allow time for a public aid lawyer to be appointed to represent him.

Dewani, from Mariestad in central Sweden, had been in Cape Town celebrating her honeymoon with her new British husband Shrien when their car was hijacked by two armed men at an intersection.

The hijackers later released Shrien Dewani, but his wife’s body was later found in a impoverished township neighbourhood south of Cape Town.

Like Mngeni, the man whose arrest was announced Thursday is a 26-year-old resident of Khayelitsha, a poor area near where Dewani’s body was found, Cele said.

He said police have recovered two cell phones, a bracelet and a watch linking the hijacking to the two men already arrested.

He said the post mortem investigation did not uncover evidence of a sexual assault.

According to media reports, the post-mortem also showed that Anni Dewani died of a single gunshot wound to the neck and her body had been released to her family.

South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, with an average 46 killings a day last year, according to official statistics.

Cape Town tourism officials have downplayed suggestions that Anni Dewani’s death represents an increased risk to visitors’ safety.

“There are thousands of incident-free tours and visits to the townships happening every year,” said tourism association chief Mariette du Toit-Helmbold in a statement.

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CRIME

Tech giants promise ‘action plan’ on stopping Nordic gangs using apps for crime

The tech giants Google, Meta, Snapchat and TikTok have pledged to give details "within months" on how they will prevent gang leaders in Nordic countries using their products to carry out serious crimes, Denmark's justice minister said on Friday.

Tech giants promise 'action plan' on stopping Nordic gangs using apps for crime

After meeting the companies along with other Nordic Justice Ministers in Uppsala, Sweden, Hummelgaard and Swedish counterpart Gunnar Strömmer said he now expected the companies to submit an “action plan” to crack down on the use of their apps to recruit young people to carry our shootings and commit other crimes. 

“I would like it to contain concrete steps on how to use the technology on the platforms to remove and screen content that helps to facilitate organised crime to a greater extent,” Hummelgaard said, while Strömmer said that although he was pleased an important step had been taken it “remains to be seen” how seriously the companies take the issue. 

READ ALSO: Danish gangs’ use of Swedish child hitmen is now a diplomatic issue

Ministers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland met to discuss gang crime, which in recent months has increasingly been shown to cross national borders, with criminals from Sweden travelling to Denmark to carry out shootings and hand grenade attacks.

According to Hummelgaard, there have been “many examples” of gangs using social media and encrypted messaging services to plan serious crimes and recruit new criminals, with lists of the payments available for carrying out various criminal services  found circulating  on social media. 

“The way I see it, political patience is about to run out, not just in the Nordic countries, but in large parts of the Western world,” Hummelgaard said.

He said the four companies had made “a really good first step” in pledging to establish a “joint Nordic cooperation forum”, where they would exchange experience and share information with each other about the use of their products in the region for crime. But he said he wanted them to be “more concrete than that”. 

READ ALSO: Nordic justice ministers meet tech giants on gangs hiring ‘child soldiers’

Hummelgaard said that he tech giants had also asked that the police authorities in the Nordic countries to provide information on what kind of “groupings and names” are using their services and how “they communicate”, so that the content can “be removed immediately”. 

“I sense that they have a clear desire and will to cooperate with us. I think that is positive,” he said. “I would also like to say that until today this has not been the experience of many of our law enforcement authorities around the Nordic countries.” 

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