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Jani Allan
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Jani Allan (born 11 September, 1953) is a former South African columnist and radio commentator. She sparked intense media attention regarding her association with right-wing political figure and interviewee Eugène Terre'Blanche and subsequent assassination attempt and libel suit.
n was adopted by British-South African couple, John and Janet Fry at a young age and divided her childhood between Britain and South Africa.
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Jani Allan (born 11 September, 1953) is a former South African columnist and radio commentator. She sparked intense media attention regarding her association with right-wing political figure and interviewee Eugène Terre'Blanche and subsequent assassination attempt and libel suit.
Biography
Early life and work
Allan was adopted by British-South African couple, John and Janet Fry at a young age and divided her childhood between Britain and South Africa. John Fry died when Allan was 10 years old. She is also a trained classical pianist and recorded a piano concerto when she was younger. Prior to becoming a journalist, she worked as a photographic model and an English teacher at Wynberg Boys' High School and Bryanston High School.
Association with Eugène Terre'Blanche
In January 1988, the Sunday Times published Allan's interview with the right-wing militant Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leader, Eugène Terre'Blanche, in Allan's Face to Face column. The two met several times after the interview, and Allan accompanied the AWB to some of their rallies and reported for the Sunday Times. Allan wrote of her fascination for Terre'blanche: Right now I've got to remind myself to breathe ... I'm impaled on the blue flames of his blowtorch eyes.
Again, she interviewed the AWB leader for The Sunday Times in November 1988, with an interview published the Sunday after the Wit Wolf (Barend Strydom) massacre in Pretoria. Her words in the January interview were relayed when there was speculation regarding an affair, when they were photographed together at the Paardekraal Monument in Krugersdorp on December 27 1988. Following the meeting, Terre'Blanche allegedly rammed his BMW through the Paardekraal Monument's gates. The crash prompted police and media appearances, and Allan and Terre'Blanche were photographed together on the Paardekraal monument steps. On the first Sunday of 1989, The Sunday Times published a front page article by Allan with the headline The REAL story of me and ET and the SAP. In the article, she denied affair allegations and claimed that she and Terre'Blanche had arranged to meet with a media crew at the monument.
A case of crimen injura was laid against Terre'Blanche in March 1989 relating to the damaged gates, with Allan subpoenaed as chief witness for the state. Ultimately Allan was not required to testify, and Terre'Blanche was acquitted.
In the early hours of 14 July 1989, the affair allegations led Cornelius Lottering, member of breakaway AWB group "Orde van die Dood", to place a bomb outside Jani Allan's Sandton apartment. There were no casualties in the blast and Lottering was convicted. A bitter and acrimonious battle ensued in the press, with Allan taking legal action against Terre'Blanche because of repeated nuisance contact. A significant episode Allan relayed was that Terre'Blanche had drunkenly hammered on her flat door and eventually slept on the doorstep and that she had to step over him the next morning. Allan later released telephone answering machine messages allegedly by Terre'Blanche and the transcripts were published in The Sunday Times accompanied by a denial by Allan of counter claims that he had made against her.
Libel suit against Channel 4
In 1992, Allan sued Channel 4, the British broadcaster, for libel, claiming that in the documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife by Nick Broomfield she was presented as a "woman of easy virtue". Amidst a montage of photographs from Allan's earlier days as a photographic model and Sunday Times quotes; Broomfield claimed that Jani Allan had had an affair with Terre'Blanche. The documentary-maker and his crew were following the AWB and its activities. The significance of the case led to its inclusion in the 1992 annual edition of Whitaker's Almanack.
Allan was represented by the late Peter Carter-Ruck in the case and Channel 4 was represented by the late QC George Carman. She later admitted to Carman
"Whatever award is given for libel, being cross-examined by you would not make it enough money."
and went on to state that Carman puts his victims through a "bloodless abattoir", delivering them into the "bone yard of damaged reputations".
The case sparked intense media interest in both Britain and South Africa. Several character witnesses were flown in from South Africa
Terre'Blanche also submitted a sworn statement to the London court denying that he had had an affair with Allan. Allan's case was dealt a heavy blow by the statements of her former flatmate, Linda Shaw, the Sunday Times astrologer. Shaw admitted that she peeped through a keyhole and witnessed Allan in a compromising position with a man. Several previously undisclosed details of the alleged affair began to unfold, and Allan's personal diary was also instrumental in the case, which Allan eventually lost on August 5 1992. Although the judge found that Channel 4's allegations had not defamed Allan, he did not rule on whether or not there had been an affair.
In 1994, during an interview with SABC, Allan accused witnesses in the case of being paid to lie and said that losing the case had served a purpose, as her disillusionment with the justice system had led her to find God and become a born-again Christian.
In a 2002 BBC film Get Carman: the trials of George Carman QC, Allan's case was dramatised together with a number of other high-profile Carmen cases. Allan was portrayed by English actress Sarah Berger in the production starring David Suchet.
The libel suit is mentioned amidst a montage of photos and camera footage of Jani Allan and reporters outside the London court in 1992, in the 2006 Nick Broomfield sequel His Big White Self, a sequel to The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife, the documentary that spawned the libel suit.
Career
Writing
Allan enjoyed success in the 1980s as a columnist for the Sunday Times with popular columns such as gossip-based Just Jani and later politics-based Face To Face published. Sections of the former were compiled into the wit/humour book Face Value. In 2006, her ex-flatmate, libel suit witness for the defence, Sunday Times astrologer Linda Shaw referred to Allan's profile as a Sunday Times journalist in the 1980s; "Jani used to write articles about all the leaders and all the top people in the country or the world at the time. And she was almost a movie star in her own right."
Following the failed assassination attempt in 1989, she left South Africa and relocated to London. She returned to South Africa in 1996, having established a radio show in Cape Town, she was contracted by Mweb to launch a website with a weekly column, letters page and live chatline. David Bullard accused her of plagiarising his work in one edition of her MWeb column .
In February 2000, she gained media attention over her claims which she published in an article for Sunday Newspaper Rapport. She claimed that whilst working at journalist Cliff Saunder's London press agency in the early 1990s, she was used as an "unwitting spy" against Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and its leader and her close personal friend Mangosuthu Buthelezi for the state.
Between 2004 and 2005 she contributed a number of columns to Christian and conservative, right-wing publications and sites such as the Jeff Rense website, AfricanCrisis, WorldNetDaily and she also published a number of columns on her personal blog. She has also been working as a published astrologer
Radio
In 1997 she took up a position as a host on Cape Talk Radio, a Cape Town-based radio show and launched her show Jani's world, which aired on Friday evenings between 9 p.m. and midnight. The show became one of the station's most popular, but became controversial in September 1999 when Allan interviewed American right-winger Keith Johnson of the Militia of Montana. Johnson denounced homosexuality, race-mixing and former South African President Nelson Mandela and offended Jewish listeners with his antisemitic views on rabbinical teachings and Judaism. Although Allan distanced herself from these views, she offended a number of listeners in that she did not acknowledge it was a mistake to broadcast the interview . Due to the negative reaction from listeners, including the South African Jewish Board of Deputies the station was instructed to issue an apology two days later. Her contract was terminated in October 2000, although no official reason was given; when questioned, the station manager, Lucia Venter, claimed that "All the announcers receive positive and negative feedback. Allan does not necessarily get more than others."
She relocated to the Unites States in 2001, where she has appeared on a number of radio shows. On 17 June 2004, Jani Allan appeared as the guest on the conspiracy theorist Jeff Rense's show. During the show, which had a listenership of 7 million, Allan accused the South African government of a genocidal campaign against white Afrikaners, citing South African Farm Murders and she encouraged Americans to sponsor white Afrikaner "refugees". She later became the regular Friday night weekly guest-commentator. In 2005, she made several appearances on the Republican radio show Flipside with Robby Noel. She also appeared on the Larry Pratt show, discussing gun laws in place in South Africa.
See also
External links
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