Fourteen years after the demise of apartheid, specialised units of the South African Police Service are still using torture to extract confessions from suspects, the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD) has told Parliament.
Briefing Parliament’s safety and security committee last week, acting ICD executive director Elias Valoyi and provincial directorate leaders told harrowing tales of the use of third-degree methods, particularly by the organised crime and national intervention units, which in at least one instance had led to death. Methods of torture included repeated beatings, electrocution and suffocation with plastic bags.
ICD North West head Matthew Sesoko said he had to send more investigators to the Bojanala region of the North West because of a rise in complaints. Sesoko pointed a finger at two organised crime units, one based in Rustenburg and the other in Klerksdorp.
Investigators are facing a barrage of complaints of torture that are ”difficult to investigate”, in part because of intimidation. A staffer who ”audited” the Rustenburg police station was arrested on domestic violence charges, he said. He approached the provincial police commissioner on the matter.
Western Cape head Thabo Leholo said his team was investigating a ”serious case” of torture involving the organised crime unit. His ”overstretched” investigators were also probing illegalities involving the manipulation of records and the altering of occurrence books.
Bellville South police station was singled out, with Leholo saying many suspects who passed through the station complained of torture.
”There are about 10 dockets and it seems the other police are reluctant to investigate members from specialised units,” he said. Non-compliance was so bad that in one instance a dead body was conveyed to the government morgue in the back of a police bakkie. His office found out about the death only when the Tygerberg morgue refused to take the body until the ICD was informed. ”If it were not for the morgue we wouldn’t have known about the circumstances surrounding the death,” said Leholo.
Eastern Cape ICD head Sakhele Poswa singled out the national intervention unit in the Port St Johns and Lusikisiki areas for abuse.
”We have about 30 cases of torture using methods unheard of in the current political situation,” said Poswa. Blindfolded suspects were tortured by policemen wearing balaclavas, so that they could not be singled out in identity parades.
Free State ICD head Israel Kgamanyane told the committee he was investigating a case of torture involving the crime intelligence unit and detectives at Makwane, who allegedly took turns in torturing four suspects for almost six hours.
Kgamanyane said that when the group suddenly realised a suspect had a head injury they rushed him to hospital in a police kombi without calling an ambulance. The hospital certified the victim dead on arrival.
Crime intelligence spokesperson Tumi Golding said this week that the unit would await the outcome of the postmortem before taking action. If police officers had transgressed, the law would take its course.
Gauteng ICD head Siphokazi Moleshe told the committee that organised crime units and task teams that ”are not on the structure of the police” posed serious problems for her investigators.
They often left crime scenes where death is involved — crime scenes to which the ICD is obliged to go — making it difficult to trace the officers involved.
Committee chair Maggie Sotyu said this week that her committee would raise the allegations with the safety and security ministry and include them in its five-year report to the next government.
The ministry referred the Mail & Guardian to the office of acting national commissioner Tim Williams, whom we emailed but did not receive a response from by the time of going to print.