Jean-Jacques Cornish

Second Mosque attack leaves three dead in Malmesbury, Western Cape

Two worshippers and their knife-wielding attacker have been killed in a Mosque in South Africa Western Province early yesterday (Thursday).
Several other people sustained stab wounds before police shot and killed their assailant.
This attack at the Malmesbury Mosque comes at the end of the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan. In South Africa, Ramadan started with a worshipper being killed by having his throat slit at a Durban Mosque 1600 kms away.
Two other people were seriously injured in that attack.
Spokesman for the serious crimes investigation unit known as the Hawks Simphiwe Mhlongo says they’re treating that incident as a national security priority.
The Muslim Judicial Council says its deeply concerned that no arrests have been made and police appear to be no closer to finding the culprit.
The Shi’s Mosque was set alight after the attack and a bomb was found in the building three days later. 
Western Cape Provincial police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut says  Malmesbury police were called out to the Mosque in the early hours of the morning and found two people stabbed to death and several injured.
As happened in Durban, the attacker prayed with the people before turning on them were them.
Fellow worshippers in Malmesbury say their attacker was a Somali as was one of his victims.
Police approached him as he walked out of the Mosque after attempting to behead one of his victims who was an old man.
They shot and killed him when he refused to lay down his knife.

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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.

Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.

Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.

Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.

He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.

He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.

He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.

In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.

He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.

Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.