/ 4 February 2000

MZWAKHE: POLICEMEN ACQUITTED

THREE policemen charged with using unnecessary force against ”People’s Poet” Mzwakhe Mbuli were acquitted during a disciplinary hearing last week. Mbuli claimed the three Lyttelton policemen assaulted and insulted him in January last year when they came to fetch him from the Pretoria Regional Court, where he was being tried for armed robbery. The policemen said he had resisted when they wanted to handcuff him. They were acquitted because witnesses contradicted one another, police said. Mbuli was sentenced to 13 years in prison in April last year for armed robbery.