WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2007-06-11 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Helen Bamford & Melanie Peters
A siege that paralysed the heart of the city centre for most of Saturday ended when a police sniper killed a man who had taken his wife and another woman hostage.
The drama played out in Nyoni’s Kraal, a Long Street restaurant. The gunman, a 26-year-old Khayelitsha man, had earlier fired on police and bystanders, injuring two people.
Police cordoned off several city blocks around the restaurant, which is on the corner of Long and Church streets, next to a branch of FNB bank, while hundreds of bystanders gathered at street corners to watch the action.
At 6.30pm, after eight hours, a police task team stormed the restaurant, using what sounded like explosives and stun grenades, and shot the man in the head.
The two women were brought out, one on a stretcher, and taken to an ambulance.
Police said the man’s wife had been shot in the leg.
A police officer said they had had to shoot the man in the head because he had his finger on the trigger of his gun.
“We couldn’t shoot him in the shoulder in case he fired.”
Weekend Argus heard unconfirmed reports that the man had acted after finding out his wife, who worked at the restaurant, had been having a relationship with a chef.
He was said to have held a gun to her head for the entire day while negotiators tried to talk him out of shooting her.
The drama started around 10.30am when the man pulled up in an old grey Toyota Corolla and entered the restaurant.
Barman James Chirwa said he was short and plump and dressed in casual clothes.
“After a few minutes I heard screaming, then shooting,” he said. He and waiter Prince Radebe ran out with the chef, leaving two women inside with the gunman.
Across the road a parking marshal, Happy Sidoni, who was trying to flag down police vans, was caught in crossfire when the gunman started firing on the police.
Sidoni, of Langa, was hit in the buttocks. She took refuge in another restaurant.
She said a man with a gun had gone into Nyoni’s Kraal.
“I heard gunshots. Then a lot of police vans came speeding up the road and I tried to stop them because they were driving past the place.
“As they stopped there were gunshots. I didn’t know what was happening. Then I was in a lot of pain. A woman at Portobello’s pulled me into the restaurant.”
A Portobello employee said they heard gunshots and then saw Sidoni was injured and went to help.
“There were police everywhere and shooting. We locked the restaurant door and watched from inside.”
Sidoni called Weekend Argus to alert people to her plight.
Police and paramedics later rescued her and took her to hospital.
Kevin Francis, owner of the Babushku antique store in Church Street, said the police didn’t seem to know where Nyoni’s Kraal was and kept driving past. “I had to stand in the road and physically stop them and show them.”
The car of a British woman driving past the restaurant was hit, her windows shattered. She ducked under the dashboard and crashed into a parked car before escaping unharmed but traumatised.
A Purple Turtle pub bouncer demanded R100 a person for the media to watch the action from the balcony.
Weekend Argus and other media captured some of the drama from an office at Standard Bank’s chambers at 144 Longmarket Street.
But police said the man had seen the cameras and thought the photographers were snipers. They ordered the media from the building.
At about 2.20pm police escorted FNB staff out of their building next to the restaurant. An hour later special task team members with shields evacuated staff at Furniture City, the other neighbour of the restaurant.
At 4.10pm three members of the task team climbed on to FNB’s roof and used a ladder to get to the restaurant’s roof. They then descended into the building.
But it was nearly two and a half hours later before the task team struck.
The restaurant, which seats 200, is owned by Colin Nyoni and opened late in 2006.