JAN HENNOP, Pretoria | Thursday
THE trial of four men convicted of setting their police dogs on illegal immigrants in a 1998 “training exercise”, continues in the Pretoria High Court on Thursday with evidence in mitigation of sentence.
On Wednesday, defence witness Hannes Brits testified it was not unusual for police dogs that were reluctant to bite to be set on suspected criminals in practice sessions.
“There is not a dog handler in South Africa who was not either personally involved in such an incident, an eyewitness, or at least knew about the practice,” said Brits, himself a former dog handler.
“It has been going on for years.”
Illegal aliens were usually the targets in practice sessions, “as they are unlikely to complain to the authorities”, he said.
Brits also testified that “targets” were readily available in the late 1970s and early 1980s among black people found on the streets without their pass books.
The court heard that some police dogs were reluctant to bite in attack situations as their training differed greatly from circumstances in real life.
There were, however, several ways to teach dogs to bite, which included “practice sessions” with more experienced dogs leading the way.
The court on Wednesday heard the start of evidence in mitigation and aggravation of sentence for Jacobus Petrus Smith, Lodewyk Christiaan Koch, Robert Benjamin Henzen and Eugene Werner Truter.
They were found guilty on three charges each of assault with the intent to do serious bodily harm on Monday.
Henzen and Truter were also convicted of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by signing a false entry in a police register.
The four men accepted guilt on all the charges.
The other two accused in the case, Nicolaas Kenneth Loubser and Dino Guiotto, on Monday pleaded not guilty on all the charges against them.
Their trial is to proceed separately in June next year.
The six men are out on bail of R2 000 each.
They were suspended without pay after their arrest in November last year shortly before SABC TV broadcast video footage of the attack.
Some of them subsequently resigned from the police.
The amateur video which was broadcast on national and international television and shocked the world — was shown for the first time in the Pretoria High Court.
During the 40-minute screening, the public gallery gasped in horror as the policemen encouraged the dogs to maul the men who screamed for help in their native Shangaan, a language widely spoken in Mozambique.
The video showed Alexandre Timane (23) as he tried to run away in a field, with the policemen shouting “rim him, rim him” at a police dog.
“Rim” was the word policemen used when they wanted their dogs to attack a person, the men’s former commander, Superintedendent Egbertus van Zyl told the court.
“Hey kaffir (a derogatory term for a black person), if you touch that bag I’ll kill you,” one of the policemen is heard saying in the video.
It shows the men laughing as they assault Timane, his brother Gabriel (24) as well as Sebastiao Cossa (25).
The three are from Paleiras village in Mozambique’s Gaza province, and are currently in a South African police witness protection programme.
During the screening the three victims sat motionless and avoided eye contact with the four accused.
On the day of the attacks — January 3, 1998 — Smith and Koch arrested the three men and found they were illegal aliens, who enjoy few rights in South Africa.
The other four then joined Smith and Koch in a field about 20 kilometres east of Johannesburg. – Sapa, AFP
ZA*NOW:
‘We were training the dogs to bite humans’ November 20, 2001
Dog attack victims, ‘abducted by cops’ October 31, 2001
Police dog handlers in court August 21, 2001
Dog attack traumatised whole of SA November 13, 2000
Mauled by dogs for not having R300 November 10, 2000
Another SAPS terror dog attack November 9, 2000
Cop dog attack tip of the iceberg November 9, 2000
Nation stunned by cop brutality footage November 8, 2000
FEATURES:
Special training for border police June 28, 2001