Search results for ""Author Marianne Thamm""

This book is an account of forensic consultant Paul O'Sullivan's role in helping nail South Africa's most powerful policeman: Jackie Selebi, former police chief and head of Interpol. Based on thousands of pages of e-mails, statements, affidavits, letters, press reports, court records, and transcripts as well as interviews with O'Sullivan himself, this version provides a perspective from his point of view as a key player in the saga. While O'Sullivan's name consistently appears in almost every key breaking story around the Selebi matter, his role has often been downplayed. The Jackie Selebi story, and the satellite narratives that orbited it, is a truly remarkable chronicle that played itself out in different layers and strata of South African society. The characters that populate it, apart from Jackie Selebi, include the president of the country at the time and his political rival; myriad crooked, corrupt businessmen; a gallery of rotten, very senior rogue cops; a phalanx of undercover intelligence operatives; two-bit hired guns; scrap metal dealers; drug and human traffickers; international criminal syndicates; and a cast of thousands of common petty thugs and criminals. Paul O'Sullivan is no suave James Bond in a tuxedo, equipped with special equipment; when dealing with criminals he can be abrasive, brusque and uncompromising. This is a real account of how the criminal underworld intersects with law enforcement and politics.

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How would you like to die? This is the question Craig Schonegevel's brave life anddeath challenge us to ask of ourselves and the society we live in. Is it humane to deny those who suffer from an incurable or life-threatening illness the right to a dignified death? The Last Right is the true story of Craig Schonegevel who suffered from the extremely variable condition known as Neurofibromatosis Type 1. In Craig's case his life was mostly one of operations, pain and suffering and his brave attempts to slay the NF 1 dragon that kept on gnawing at his life and his body. His extraordinary courage in the face of this disease is to be admired and provides some relief from the anguish and sadness that pervades the book. Craig was 28 years old when he decided he had had enough, his symptoms began to worsen and the agony was too much to bear so he sought self-deliverance. The Last Right asks the reader to put themselves in Craig's shoes, to get to know how the disease Neurofibromatosis Type 1 affected him and finally to decide whether they would have considered making the same choice that Craig did. It is the true story of how one family, their friends and the community.

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