Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
The family and widow of a Witwatersrand University security guard who was arrested, shot and killed while in police custody in March are to sue Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete for R400 000.
The family has instructed the Wits Law Clinic to demand the compensation after their son, Nicky Hlongwane, was allegedly shot and killed by three policemen from the Soweto flying squad.
The Hlongwane family is suing for loss of support, as Hlongwane was the breadwinner. The Wits Law Clinic representative, Professor Peter Jordi, said he has filed a notice against the police.
The three accused policemen appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court this week on charges of shooting and killing Hlongwane, whom they arrested on the Wits campus in Parktown, Johannesburg, on March 12.
Sources say new evidence that the three policemen may have handed over Hlongwane to taxi warlords, who then killed him, emerged from one of the accused, who has turned state witness.
Two of the accused, constables FS Mlangeni and ND Tshabalala, have been suspended pending a police investigation and given bail of R10 000 each. The other accused, whose name has not been divulged, was refused bail and charged with shooting Hlongwane several times and chopping off both his hands.
The suspects are alleged to have also chopped off Hlongwane’s ears before dumping his body in the veld outside Roodeport.
The policemen initially denied having arrested Hlongwane, but were then confronted with records from Wits security in which two of them had logged their names, force numbers and the time they entered the campus.
Hlongwane, whose mutilated corpse was found two weeks ago in the veld outside Roode-poort, was buried in KwaZulu-Natal last week.
After his arrest, Hlongwane’s family tried unsuccessfully to locate him at various police stations around Johannesburg. The Wits Law Clinic, under the instruction of the family, wrote letters to Tshwete and the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), complaining about the disappearance of Hlongwane while in police custody.
In 1999 alone, the ICD received 1 292 cases of deaths in custody or as a result of police action. The ICD has finalised 928 cases and 319 were referred to the Director of Public Prosecution.