{"id":16799,"date":"2026-01-29T07:16:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=16799"},"modified":"2026-01-29T07:16:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:16:44","slug":"south-africa-appoints-judge-to-chair-inquiry-on-iran-naval-drill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=16799","title":{"rendered":"South Africa appoints judge to chair inquiry on Iran naval drill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"textFreeArticle\">\n<p>South Africa appointed a retired judge to chair an inquiry into Iran\u2019s participation in naval drills off the coast of Cape Town this month, following conflicting reports about the Islamic Republic\u2019s involvement in the exercises.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Bernard Ngoepe will chair the investigating board, while judges Monica Leeuw and Kathleen Satchwell, together with Patrick Duze \u2014 \u00a0a retired rear admiral from the South African Navy \u2014 are the other members of the body, the Department of Defence said in a statement Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Warships from some members of the Brics group of developing nations, including Iran, Russia and China, arrived in South African waters in early January for a naval exercise, with the US criticising Tehran\u2019s participation for undermining maritime security and regional stability.<\/p>\n<div class=\"visible-sm-block visible-xs-block m1010\">\n<div class=\"ad-container-wrapper\">\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>US President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran over a violent crackdown against protesters, and said the US will impose a 25% tariff on goods from countries \u201cdoing business\u201d with the nation.<\/p>\n<p>While local news outlet News24 reported that Pretoria had persuaded Iran to withdraw from the war games, pictures on the South African National Defence Force\u2019s Facebook page showed captains of participating vessels docked in the naval base in Simon\u2019s Town, with Iranian officials present.<\/p>\n<p>South African Defense Minister Angie Motshekga said President Cyril Ramaphosa had issued clear instructions on how the drills should be conducted \u2014 which dealt with Iran\u2019s participation in particular \u2014 and they had been clearly communicated.<\/p>\n<p>The board will investigate and report on \u201cthe serious allegations that the president\u2019s instructions may have not been carried out, misrepresented and or ignored\u201d regarding Iran\u2019s participation, the Department of Defence said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2026 Bloomberg<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Moneyweb\u2019s in-depth finance and business news on WhatsApp here.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script data-cfasync=\"false\">\n            !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n            {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n                n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n                if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n                n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n                t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n                s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n                'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n            fbq('init', '779812924991616');\n            fbq('track', 'PageView');\n        <\/script>#South #Africa #appoints #judge #chair #inquiry #Iran #naval #drill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa appointed a retir&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[279,4229,1339,9179,9178,6466,4418,793,278],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}