Closing arguments are to be heard in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday in the trial of two former policemen accused of taking part in a 1998 dog ”training exercise” using illegal immigrants as bait.
During their trial last month, Nicolaas Kenneth Loubser and Dino Guiotto pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them. They have been charged with three counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, one of corruption for allegedly trying to bribe the victims, and another of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by allegedly making false registry entries after the incident.
The two claimed in court they were forced and threatened to take part in the ”exercise” in which three Mozambicans were injured on January 3 that year.
They said they were threatened with physical violence and the loss of their jobs if they refused. They said they pretended to participate, while all the time ”protecting” the victims. Guiotto said he restrained his dog by its leash so that it could not get a proper grip on the victims, while Loubser claimed he knew beforehand that his untrained dog would not bite in any event.
They contended their dogs inflicted none of the injuries suffered by the three Mozambicans — Alexandre Pedro Timane, Gabriel Pedro Timane and Sylvester Cose.
Their co-accused, Jacobus Petrus Smith, Lodewyk Christiaan Koch, Robert Benjamin Henzen and Eugene Werner Truter, pleaded guilty and were convicted in November 2001. Smith was sentenced to an effective five years in jail and the other three to four years. Testifying for the State, Truter and Koch said Guiotto and Loubser requested the ”training exercise” because they needed help with their dogs which were apparently not aggressive enough.
The six men were arrested in 2000 shortly before the SABC screened a video showing some of them inciting their police dogs to bite the three immigrants near Benoni. They could also be seen assaulting the victims.
The six were at the time all members of the police’s North-East Rand Dog Unit. – Sapa