The young Pretoria prostitute at the centre of a row over alleged police brutality found the courage to come out of hiding and make a statement to police on Sunday, the Pretoria News reported.
The report, reproduced on the IOL website, said she made the statement to the provincial commander of the organised crime unit, Director Simon Mapyane, who is heading the investigation into an alleged attack by Sunnyside police.
National Commissioner Jackie Selebi has rejected the accusation of police brutality as an ”absolute thumb-suck” because the woman had never been in a coma, but had in fact been pepper-sprayed by police in Sunnyside.
The woman, who is in her late teens, told the Pretoria News that she was terrified and could not stay in Pretoria any more.
”I am scared. I am really scared and I want to go home to my mother,” said the woman.
She said she wants those who had hurt her to be dealt with.
”They must be locked up. They cannot be allowed to do this. I have not hurt these police. I do not even know them and do not know what they want with me. I am scared that they will kill me. I do not want to die,” she said.
On Friday, Selebi told newspaper editors how he had, in response to the initial reports on the matter, dispatched a deputy police commissioner to investigate the matter immediately.
The senior police officer had gone to the hospital where the prostitute had been taken to find that she had already been released.
”The doctor showed him the medical report. There was no coma. The patient had some irritation of the eyes, which came from pepper spray. The wounds around her neck, which was shown prominently in photographs, were old burn marks from something else.
”The policeman then followed up the supposed address given by the prostitute in Hammanskraal. The people there said they had never seen or heard of such a person.
”She has disappeared. How can a person in a coma give a false address?” Selebi asked. — Sapa