”It’s ridiculous – I can’t believe it.” Riot police and higher-ranking colleagues packing the public benches greeted the verdict with a brief burst of applause before filing out of the Wynberg courtroom yesterday. Major Charles Roger Brazelle, operations officer of the riot squad unit in the Western Cape, and his co-accused, Lieutenant David Johan Roos, commander of one of the unit’s platoons, wore broad smiles.
”I am happy that justice has triumphed,” said Brazelle. But for Rockman, it was the Emergency regulations that had triumphed. Regional magistrate AS McCarthy, while fuming that riot squad members did unlawfully assault members of the public – and con¬demning such action as ”utterly despicable” nevertheless ruled that Brazelle and Roos could not be found guilty of assault. They had not themselves beaten anyone there was insufficient evidence that they had witnessed assaults. The order to use violence was authorised in terms of Regulation 2 of the Emergency regulations. Because the state had failed to prove the deci¬sion to use violence was made in bad faith, both men came under the protection of Regula¬tion 15 -the so-called indemnity clause.
Outside the courtroom, well-wishers pressed round Rockman, uttering ”hear, hear” and ”that’s right” as he gave his opinion of the verdict. ”Why condemn them then acquit them?” Rockman asked. ”It means you’re saying: ‘Carry on with the good work’. ”You could see from the smiles on (the riot squad members’) faces that they’re happy about it -now they can go on the rampage and carry on feasting on the people. ”If there was no state of Emergency then they would have been found guilty. It protects them. They make laws to suit themselves. ”The State of Emergency should be scrapped. There’s no need for it in South Afri¬ca. It just gives the police authority to beat people up. ”If we want change, why give wider powers to beat up people? It’s not going to solve our problems, it just builds up hate against the police.”
The prosecution was a direct result of Rockman’s widely publicised claims of police brutality. The haste with which the trial got under way – just four days after the decision to prosecute was announced – raised the eyebrows of legal observers. Rockman yesterday told the Weekly Mail he believed the trial was deliberately rushed to lay him open to an internal inquiry currently under way. He said the Cape attorney general, Niel Rossouw, told him on their very first meeting that a court date had already been set. ”At that time they had no statements from any other witnesses, only mine,” Rockman said. Rossouw was not available yesterday to respond to this allegation. The fact remains that Rockman breached stringent police protocols by speaking to the press and in his evidence admitted he may have done so.
Major-General Jaap Joubert, who led the police inquiry into Rockman’s allegations, told the Weekly Mail that anything Rockman said in the witness stand could well be held against him in an internal inquiry. ”I’ll wait and sec what they have in store for me,” Rockman said yesterday. ”I’ll stay in the police and if they want me out, they must kick me out.” Another question remaining is whether any action is intended against members of the riot squad found by the court to have acted unlawfully. In his judgement, the magistrate said he was ”astonished” that they could not be identified – and said that if they could be, he wondered why they were not before the court.
The beatings they inflicted on demonstrating schoolchildren and bystanders in Mitchells Plain on September 5 were ”not only unlawful but utterly despicable” – particularly the case in which a witness was struck across the breasts. The witness, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, acknowledged she was part of the demonstration, but had heeded the order to disperse. The Criminal Procedures Act laid down specific guidelines for the use of corporal punishment, said McCarthy. Members of Roos’ platoon were guilty of unlawful assaults, McCarthy found: ”The court cannot believe that such actions can be gainsaid.” Regulation 15 effectively protects security force members from civil or criminal proceedings arising from action taken in terms of the regulations, where they have acted in ”good faith”. And, said McCarthy, the state had not succeeded in showing that Brazelle and Roos were guilty of acting in bad faith. The order to use violence was not unlawful, said McCarthy.
”To the contrary: it is authorised by Regulation 2 of the Emergency regulations.” Of the state’s witnesses, five said they had been beaten and their testimony was not criticised by the defence. Thus it was not necessary to review their evidence in depth. Rockman, on the other hand, had been branded by the defence as a liar and for this reason it was necessary to ”look at his evidence more closely and evaluate it”.
Rockman impressed the court as ”an intelligent person with an attractive system of values”. In view of his statements to the press which put the police in a bad light, one would expect him to be prejudiced and should approach his evidence with caution. The court was aware of the contradictions in his evidence, but it didn’t necessarily follow that his evidence was incorrect. ”The court’s opinion is that the contradictions do not necessarily affect the finding that he was on the scene and is basically an honest witness.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
