Chatsworth police station is the subject of a police internal investigation unit probe
Paul Kirk
Four policemen from Chatsworth, KwaZulu- Natal, appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court this week on charges of beating a destitute deaf mute man to death.
The policemen, who remain on duty, allegedly bludgeoned Clive Michael with a variety of blunt instruments after he sought shelter from heavy rain in the police station. The officers are alleged to have wheeled Michael’s battered, naked body around the police station in a shopping trolley before dumping him in a cell.
“This is a most shocking, sickening case -the worst I have had for years. It is a telling indictment on our society,” says Sibusiso Mseleje, a senior investigator for the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), the police watchdog that is handling the case. “This poor man was beaten up like hell. For no reason. He was beaten until he died like an animal.”
The case, which was this week transferred to the high court, has taken three years to come to trial because of a full court roll and a delay by the state pathologist in delivering the autopsy report. The prosecution also struggled to obtain statements from other policemen at the Chatsworth police station, which is the subject of many other probes by the ICD and the police internal investigations unit.
Mseleje says the defence’s version of events is that the policemen left Michael in the charge office and he disappeared. When he was found he was allegedly tampering with a car inside the police compound and so they locked him up. “Thereafter the four accused booked him out of the cells for further investigation. That is when they are alleged to have done this shocking thing – this murder,” Mseleje says.
The ICD investigator says the four officers took the man to their office where they allegedly assaulted him over a period of hours. After some time the four accused were seen wheeling the naked body of the man out of their office. They placed their limp and bleeding victim in a shopping trolley to move him around, Mseleje says.
Sources inside Chatsworth police station claim the four were apparently laughing out loud as they wheeled Michael around the station.
When the four got him to the cells they allegedly threw him head first on to the cement floor and left him there. As an afterthought they are alleged to have thrown a blanket over his naked body some time later.
“He was placed in a cell and denied medical care,” says Mseleje. Other policemen who saw the body were frightened; they thought Michael was dead, “but the accused reassured them their victim was only acting and did not need help”.
After some time, policemen who had not been involved in the assault panicked and summoned medical help. But Michael was already dead.
All four accused – Captain David Ragavan, Constable Preganathan Naidoo, Inspector Dhinasagren Govender and Constable Colin Solomon – have been charged with Michael’s murder. And all four are still free men, having been granted bail, and remain employed by the police.
Mseleje says after his investigators arrested the four men they successfully opposed bail in the regional court. “Then on December 24 we got a letter from the high court saying the accused had all been released on only R5E000 bail. It is understandable if people say there was no justice for this poor victim. We were not even informed the accused had appealed to the high court.”
Mseleje adds: “This is a worrying situation. These men are potentially dangerous. Who knows what they may do next?”
Mseleje could not tell the Mail & Guardian how many other cases his unit is investigating against Chatsworth police station. “But it is too many, too many by far. A lot more cases are being investigated by the corruption and internal investigation unit.”
The internal investigation unit declined to discuss cases with the M&G, saying the issue is very sensitive. However, a representative would say that more than half the staff at the police station are under investigation and that it is felt the station is “rotten to the core”.
Among other things the unit is probing how a safe in the charge office was broken into while policemen were on duty in the charge office. It is also probing a number of burglaries at the station, where it is suspected detectives raided filing cabinets to steal dockets.
The representative also said the police are investigating the death of Hoosen Shaik (35), a young newly-wed, who was shot dead inside the police station by Sergeant Hanujayam Mayadevan.
Mayadevan is one of the Chatsworth policemen who robbed SBV Services of R32-million in 1996. After being arrested and charged with the robbery he turned on his former friends and has been giving evidence against them as an “accomplice witness”.
Among other revelations about the police station, Mayadevan has claimed the Chatsworth station commissioner, Superintendent “Morgan” Perumal, demanded a bribe to keep quiet about the involvement of his policemen in the heist.
Mayadevan has also admitted to distributing R300E000 in cash around the station to buy the silence of other policemen.
Judge Niles Dunier has instructed that a copy of the court record be given to Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete as Dunier was “shocked” that the minister was seemingly not aware of widespread corruption at the station.
Meanwhile, Durban’s senior public prosecutor, Barend Groen, has submitted a report to the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions following a raid on the station’s investigation dockets by the commercial crime unit more than two years ago.
More than 20E000 dockets were removed for the investigation. According to sources close to the investigation, the “overwhelming” majority of these dockets were not correctly filled in and in many cases the complainants’ names were not even noted.
Chatsworth police representative Captain Jennifer Chetty says morale at the station is at an all-time low. “It is a shame that the actions of a minority have ruined the good name of the police station.”
However, one source within the anti- corruption says the best solution would be to close the police station. “It seems to be the major source of crime in the area,” the investigator says.