The balaclava-clad squad that swept through Pollsmoor is also being investigated for actions at Helderstroom jail, reports Tangeni Amupadhi
MEMBERS of the prison crack squad accused of attacking and robbing 200 convicts in Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison last week are already being investigated for assaults during a similar raid three months ago.
Though the Department of Correctional Services sought this week to dismiss the latest incident as a one-off, it has emerged that police are investigating 25 members of the same balaclava-clad task force for their actions during a swoop on the Helderstroom prison in Caledon in February.
No internal disciplinary action has been taken against those involved in the Helderstroom raid. But police have investigated and their report is due to be handed within weeks to the Western Cape Attorney General, Frank Kahn.
The Correctional Services Department has launched an investigation into the Pollsmoor incident. Ironically, Abraham Pieterson, one of the two senior officials leading the inquiry, heads Helderstroom and ordered the February raid.
The task team – drawn from prisons across the Western Cape – is trained to contain riots and identify weapons and explosives. Each prison has its own trained squad, but outside members were used at Pollsmoor amid fears that the prison’s own warders were involved in the prisoners’ roguery.
The 156-member Pollsmoor task team was the largest force deployed so far. More than half the prison’s 7 000 inmates are kept in the maximum security section.
A police representative said this week that preliminary inquiries suggested that 400 Pollsmoor prisoners plan to lodge complaints against the squad.
Eight Pollsmoor convicts were hospitalised after Saturday morning’s raid in which the task force searched the prison for weapons.
Prisoners have claimed to officials of the Human Rights Commission that task force members whipped them with pistols, damaged their property and took their money. They said members chanted anti-government slogans during the raid. No weapons were recovered.
Provincial correctional services representative Eddie Johnson described the incident as “an unfortunate situation where members have overstepped their brief and it will be unfair to blame the authorities”.
But the commission said the crack squads are being encouraged to run amok because no measures have been taken against them.
“We’ve encountered problems with this task force before,” says commission legal officer Ron Paschke. “We are quite disturbed that task force members, who were in the Helderstroom incident, may have been used in the second operation.”
A Department of Correctional Services representative, Barry Eksteen, said at Pretoria headquarters that none of the task team members accused of Helderstroom could be suspended because “the law must take its course … You cannot suspend anybody who has not been found guilty, not just on allegations.
“If the person is found guilty in a court of law the department will seriously consider his fitness to be employed.”
Other Western Cape provincial officials say the attack on Pollsmoor prisoners was orchestrated to undermine new correctional services management, including John Jansen, who took over as head of the maximum security section only two months ago.
According to Pascke, the task team members refused to identify themselves when Jansen confronted them after the raid, and then told him that he was ungrateful for their work. He said that Jansen had been trying to improve the treatment of Pollsmoor’s convicts.
Jansen was unavailable for comment this week.