Police net alleged sex blogger

22 July 2007- South Africa- Juan Duval-Uys, the alleged mastermind behind a controversial anti-crime website and a slanderous male prostitute blog in which he "outed" a number of prominent South African men, was arrested at his mother's house in Kroonstad on Saturday.

Uys, the president and only apparent member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, who appears to use a string of aliases, has a number of outstanding warrants against him, including fraud and crimen injuria. He was finally arrested on a R250 theft charge.

Simon Grindrod, an Independent Democrats politician, expressed relief at the arrest, saying that Uys faced so many charges he was bound to get caught "sooner or later". Grindrod, one of 16 men named as having paid for sex with the male prostitute who called himself Skye, laid charges of crimen injuria with the police.

James Small, the ex-Springbok rugby player also named on the explicit rent boy website, said at the time it was a "sick fantasy".

Others named in the blog included a well-known Afrikaans singer, a radio personality, a dominee and gospel singer, a fashion guru and a married journalist.

It was written in Afrikaans with lurid details of his clients' alleged sexual requests.

Grindrod also laid a fraud charge against Uys, alias "Neil Watson", who ran the controversial Crime Expose South African website.

The website solicited money from people while urging tourists to boycott South Africa until crime was under control.

"I am very pleased he has finally been apprehended," Grindrod said. "The saddest thing, though, is that, through his insane actions, he has embarrassed the gay community and cast a cloud over the whole blogging fraternity."

Andre Snyman, the founder of the anti-crime organisation eBlockWatch, which helped police nab Uys on Saturday, said Uys would probably be transferred to Cape Town to face charges.

A Kroonstad police spokesperson confirmed the arrest, which took place at 5.10am on Saturday, and said Uys would be transferred, but could not say when or to where.

Snyman has been tracking Uys since December with the help of the community, who sent tips that were compiled into intelligence reports and handed to the police.

"He's been very elusive so it's a hell of a relief that he has finally been caught," he said.

Snyman said that Uys had been making obscene and threatening calls to his home.

"One night, he called me 35 times. I was scared that he would go a step further and actually harm me."

In June, reports emerged that the National Intelligence Agency was after the sex blogger when he claimed that one of President Thabo Mbeki's guards was a client of his. He had also threatened to reveal private information about the president.

Uys first hit the headlines in 2002 when he lashed out at Peter Marais, the then Western Cape premier, for claiming a "gay group" in the Democratic Alliance was behind a spate of sexual harassment charges against him.

Claiming to be the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, he demanded that Marais step down.

Later that year, he threatened to name and shame "South Africa's worst homophobes", referring to Obed Mlaba, the mayor of eThekwini who, the year before, was forced to apologise after being quoted as saying: "Cape Town can stay with its moffies and its gays"

Then, in January 2003, following the bloody massacre of nine men at Sizzlers, the gay Sea Point massage parlour, Uys claimed that his car had been vandalised around the time of the attack.

He later announced that the organisation's national congress had to be called off after a "threatening" visit by a "known criminal" hours after the massacre.

Other gay and lesbian groups distanced themselves from the alliance when it stated it was registered with the Independent Electoral Commission as "the political voice of lesbigay South Africa".

It later emerged that Uys was a neighbour of Adam Woest, one of the Sizzlers killers. The other was Trevor Thys. Both men are serving life sentences.

In July 2003, in what appeared to be a publicity stunt, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance announced a name and identity change to the Death Penalty Party of South Africa.

In 2006, the organisation raised fears when it announced that its 100 000 male members would donate blood to the South African National Blood Service without disclosing their sexual orientation.

But it turned out to be a hoax, prompting other gay bodies to slam the alliance as just a "handful of crazy individuals".

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