Citizen Online
Friday, November 17, 2006
JOHANNESBURG - A door banged shut. That marked the end of Glenn Agliotti's five-minute court appearance that had Court 20 of the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court packed on Thursday.
Media ranging from television magazine shows to newspaper artists had all come for the opening a new chapter in the murder mystery story centred on slain mining magnate Brett Kebble.
And it was flavoured with twists by reports on Agliotti's friendship with Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi and his association with Kebble himself.
However, at this early stage the court let out no clues.
Or perhaps just one: That Agliotti might be not a stranger to the justice system.
"You look vaguely familiar," short-bearded regional magistrate Lukas van der Schyff said from his throne-like Bench, draped in the uniform red and black of a presiding officer.
He said he thought he had once before been involved in a case at which Agliotti had been present.
"Yes, sir," the thick-set Agliotti replied quietly, neatly dressed in a purple and pink striped shirt, his hands in front of him. He had arrived with the Scorpions, in handcuffs, but escaped the lenses of many photographers who were focusing on other Scorpions across the road.
Agliotti's five minutes in court did not see him apply for bail.
In the meantime an alternative magistrate would have to be found.
But the court allowed for Agliotti to return to the northern side of town, the direction he had come from having been picked up in a dawn Scorpions raid at his house in that part of the world.
Van der Schyff ordered that Sandton police cells be his lodgings until December 8 when he is scheduled to apply for bail.
After offering a bow to the magistrate whom he will not be seeing the next time around, Agliotti walked down to the holding cells accompanied by a policeman. Then the door slammed shut. - Sapa.