Aaron Nicodemus
Matthews Ngubeni (56) does not know why his son Moses died at the hands of police officers last year, because no one will answer his persistent questions.
”I’ve gone to a lot of places, asking what happened,” Ngubeni says. ”Something is happening here, no one will answer my questions. Is it OK that innocent people die and no one cares about it?”
In a year, Ngubeni has visited two Soweto police stations, the South African Police Service’s (SAPS)Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the Wits Legal Centre and the Legal Resources Centre in a vain attempt to obtain his son’s post-mortem report. He has been told the case is ”secret”, that ”your son is dead already so leave it alone”, and that ”asking questions will only lead to trouble”.
”All I want to know is what happened to my son,” he said. ”My son is dead, and I still want to know why.”
The Mail & Guardian, making several phone calls to police and the ICD, was able, in 24 hours, to obtain a version of what happened to Moses Ngubeni.
There is still no word on why Moses Ngubeni was arrested or what happened to youths arrested with him. The case highlights the huge obstacles an average citizen must face in order to get a simple answer to a simple question: what happened to my son?
With the help of the Legal Resources Centre, Matthews Ngubeni has filed a suit against the police and the ICD for ”shock and emotional damages” caused by his son’s death, as well as the cost of Moses Ngubeni’s funeral. The suit does not yet have a financial sum attached to it.
Several of the legal advocates who have been pursuing the case on Matthews Ngubeni’s behalf believe the police have stalled in order for a year to have passed since Moses Ngubeni’s death, so the window in which Matthews Ngubeni could file for damages would have closed. As it stands, Ngubeni put his claim in less than a month before that one- year period would have elapsed.
Moses Ngubeni was 21 years old in July 1996, when he and three of his friends were arrested by Soweto police officers in Jabulani. The four were taken into custody at the Jabulani police station.
Police representative Superintendent Govindsamy Mariemuthoo says that police reports indicate that the four youths, including Moses Ngubeni, tried to escape from their cell at the station. The youths grabbed a police officer’s revolver in the ensuing struggle, Mariemuthoo says. When the shooting stopped two policemen were critically wounded and Moses Ngubeni had been killed. Mariemuthoo says an official inquest has been opened, and that the investigation is still not complete.
This is more information than Matthews Ngubeni has managed to uncover in a year of frustration. All he knows about his son’s death was the phrase police used: he died of ”multiple injuries”.
Matthews Ngubeni, who along with his wife Gladys identified their son’s body, said Moses Ngubeni had been shot five times, including shots in the forehead, chin and leg. His fingers and toes were severely cut and bruised, which Matthews Ngubeni believes are signs of torture. Ngubeni says when he went to identify the body of his third-eldest son, its entire left side had a greenish hue.
”It was horrible, terrible. I couldn’t believe it. I am still shaking, even now,” Ngubeni said.
The ICD is monitoring the investigation, which has moved from the Jabulani police station to the Kliptown police station.
Mpho Ntsheno, senior investigating officer at the ICD, says the post-mortem report cannot be released because it is still part of the ongoing investigation.
”It is not the property of the SAPS,” he explained, although he did say the ICD has a copy. ”It is the property of the director of public prosecutions.”
Ntsheno says he is still waiting for a response from the Kliptown police station on the status of their investigation.
After identifying his son at the mortuary, Matthews Ngubeni arranged for a funeral. Upon arrival the next day, there was a paper sign on his son’s coffin that said, ”Do not remove the deceased.”
Ngubeni went away angry. When he returned the next day, the sign was gone, with no explanation. Ngubeni and his wife buried their son in Roodeport cemetery.
”He’s gone and I’ve been trying to forget,” Ngubeni said. ”But how can you forget? When you try, something reminds you. I can’t get away from it.”
Since the funeral, Ngubeni has been patiently attempting to find out what happened. He has been stonewalled at every turn. At one point, Ngubeni was told by an ICD official that there was no such case involving his son.
On Ngubeni’s behalf, the Wits Legal Centre requested information on the case. A response from the ICD contained the case number. When Ngubeni went to the ICD a second time, officials held the file underneath the desk, saying yes, they had the documents, but he could not see them. They are secret, he was told.
”I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with these people,” Ngubeni says.
Achmed Mayet of the Legal Resources Centre cannot fathom why the ICD will not provide Ngubeni with the post-mortem report on his own son. ”I’m very disappointed in the way the ICD has treated Mr Ngubeni,” Mayet said. ”They seem to lack the capacity and will to assist the public when police have transgressed their powers and the rights of citizens.”
Mayet says he contacted the ICD director in the Western Cape, who told him that a post- mortem report is a public document.
Ngubeni’s search for answers eerily mirrors the plot line of A Dry White Season by Andr Brink. In the book, a white teacher named Du Toit joins a distraught Soweto father in the search for answers about his son, who died mysteriously in police custody. In the book, the youth’s father works as a janitor at Du Toit’s school. The two delve deeper and deeper into the dark underworld of the apartheid police state.
In the real-life saga currently unfolding, an advocate at Arthur Anderson Consulting in Hyde Park, Pierre du Toit, has been assisting Ngubeni in his search for answers. Ngubeni has been a file clerk at Arthur Anderson for 15 years, and lives in Zone 3, Soweto. The dead sons in the book and in real life were young, just out of high school.
Ngubeni’s patience with authorities is wearing thin. ”They want to build up all the lies, so that it could become the truth,” Ngubeni said. ”A year after Moses was killed, I still don’t know what happened.”