A Pretoria High Court judge has expressed shock and disdain at evidence that four members of the public, arrested for no reason, had to pay R1 500 each to the police in eMalahleni (formerly Witbank) to protect them while they were kept in the holding cells of the police station. Barend Olivier, Frederick Haycock and Harry and Kyriakos Haralambous said the police, before locking them up, told them they each had to pay up to not be assaulted in the cells.
While they were being taken to the cells, one said he saw a detainee being assaulted and thrown into a toilet pit. Their parents paid the money to the police and the four were removed to another cell.
Judge Joseph Raulinga said this evidence raised alarm on the observance of human rights in the country. It also raised suspicion that this practice was not confined to eMalahleni. “This might be a practice countrywide. Unless this evil deed is investigated and stopped immediately, the whole justice system may at the end be corrupted to the core.”
While one was aware of the efforts made by many police members who on a daily basis tried to dedicate their lives to a better service to the people, one could not close an eye to this humiliating practice by a few police officers, he said. “The question is whether the defendants (who include the Minister of Police) knew about this practice. “If they did, then their unlawful detention of the plaintiffs must be treated with the contempt it deserves.”
The judge said he was certain that the matter deserved the attention of the Commissioner of Police in Mpumalanga and the National Police Commissioner. The judge’s remarks were sparked by a damages claim against the police by the four young men. They claimed the police shot at them and arrested them for no reason. They were locked up in a police cell for nearly two days, but nothing came of the charges against them.
The police denied wrongdoing and said they thought the four were buying drugs from a notorious Nigerian drug dealer in the area. The police said they had set a trap for the dealer that night and saw the men speaking to the “dealer” before heading with him into tall grass, where he stashed his drugs. But the four had no idea what the police were talking about. They said they were on their way home from a club and wanted to take a shortcut home. They got lost in a nearby township and stopped to ask a man who was walking along the road, for directions. Two of them got out of the vehicle to urinate. When they got back into the car, they heard a noise and only later realised their tyres had been shot. They stopped at a garage as they thought they were being hijacked. They wanted to phone the police when a police contingent on quad bikes stopped at the garage with tyres screeching .
The four claimed they were accused of attempted murder, among other things, assaulted and taken to the police station in the early hours of Saturday morning, May 17, 2008. They were only allowed to go home on the Monday morning, without charges brought against them.
The police said they had information about a drug dealer in Tasbet Park in eMalahleni, who hid his stash in the veld. They conducted a police operation that day and hid their quad bikes in the veld. They saw the four young men speaking “in a jovial manner” to the “drug dealer”. The police claimed the four even walked with the dealer into the veld. One said he could hear the rustle of plastic bags as the “dealer” fiddled in the bags to get the drugs.
The four had discovered the police quad bikes, hidden under netting in the veld, and they feared the men were going to steal the bikes, police said. They fired at the suspects, but the men raced away in their car. They gave chase and caught them at the garage.
The judge said there were many suspicious aspects in this case, including why the cops, if they were so anxious to catch the drug dealer, did not apprehend him if they were close enough to hear the rustle of the plastic bags.
He awarded damages to the four men ranging from between R65 000 and R39 000. The judge also accepted the evidence of the petrol attendant, who said he saw the police assaulting the men. He said the cops told him the men were drug dealers.
Source: IoL
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