{"id":14365,"date":"2026-01-10T02:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T02:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/14365\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T02:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T02:12:11","slug":"viral-cellphone-snatchers-case-postponed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/14365\/","title":{"rendered":"Viral cellphone snatcher’s case postponed"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man, who went viral on social media in December for snatching a woman’s cellphone in Pretoria, briefly appeared in the Hatfield Magistrates Court on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nobert Zapambela is charged with robbery after he was filmed snatching a woman’s cellphone before fleeing in a vehicle in Brooklyn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was arrested by members of Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) two days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The media were denied access to film proceedings at the Hatfield Magistrates Court, where Zapambela appeared on charges of robbery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zapambela appeared briefly in a brown sweater, where his case was remanded to next Friday for bail information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His attorney-advocate, Dolphy Bobape, argued against three applications brought by the media to have the proceedings filmed.<\/p>\n

Bopape claimed the media applications were vague and that they should be redrafted and presented prior to his client’s next appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ALSO READ: JMPD nets viral Gauteng cellphone snatcher in Hillbrow<\/a><\/p>\n

This, despite Zapambela’s face having gone viral on social media during the robbery incident as well as upon his arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zapambela was found with several cellphones, all iPhones, as well as cloned vehicle registration plates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Upon his arrest, Johannesburg MMC for public safety, Mgcini Tshwaku, questioned and filmed Zapambela about his crimes in an X post that obtained close to 100 thousand views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The man, who went viral on social media in December for snatching a woman’s cellphone in Pretoria, briefly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[397,398,403,400,399,401,96,402,406,405,404,131],"class_list":{"0":"post-14365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-ewn","9":"tag-ewn-news","10":"tag-ewn-south-africa","11":"tag-eye-witness-news","12":"tag-eyewitness-news","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-news-today","16":"tag-prime-media-plus","17":"tag-primedia-plus","18":"tag-primedia","19":"tag-south-africa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}