Durban - An Umgababa man, who lost a brother to the Glebelands killings, says he was tortured by police for 45 minutes this week while his mother and two nieces heard his anguished cries from a room next door.
Sgcino Khuzwayo, 35, who suffered a cut above the eye, a bruised face and wrist, said the incident had left his mother and nieces traumatised, and him fearful for his life.
In November, his brother, Frank, was shot dead in the Glebelands Hostel.
He said that on Sunday, five plain-clothed policemen arrived at his home and questioned him about guns his brother apparently owned.
“Two of the men took me to my room and closed the door, while others guarded my mother and two nieces aged 11 and 15.”
“Inside the room, the men tied my hands behind my back and suffocated me with a plastic bag. All the time they were saying they won’t stop torturing until I give them the guns,” Khuzwayo said.
He said when he tried to lift himself up one of them hit him with the butt of a gun.
Pictures sent to the Daily News show his bruised face and wrist, and a cut above the eye.
Khuzwayo in the end confessed to keeping a gun at his friend’s place. “That was a false confession because I needed them to stop. I thought they were going to kill me if I didn’t say what they wanted to hear.
“They took me to the friend’s place, but by God’s grace he was not home. They searched the house and having found nothing, they told me they will force the truth out of me.”
“As we walked out the house I decided to make a break and free myself from these men. As I was running away they fired shots at me, but they missed,” he said.
He had since returned home and said he had not heard from the police since.
Although the vehicle the police were driving was unmarked, the Daily News traced it through its registration plate to the police Intervention Unit in Ashwood, Pinetown.
Khuzwayo said he had thought torturing of crime suspects was “a thing of the past”.
“Most painful is that in November we buried my older brother and there has been no progress in the investigation into his death at Glebelands.”
His 68-year-old asthmatic mother, Ntombi, said during the torture she was held by one man in the kitchen.
She said she had difficulty breathing and when she tried to leave the room, the man stopped her. It was only when her chest was heaving loudly that the man allowed a child to bring an asthma pump.
“I asked these men what were they looking for and they said they were sent from Glebelands to come and get guns from my son. All this time I could hear my child crying in the room.”
“I asked this man to let me leave the house, and once they are done killing my child, they can call me back in. I couldn’t stand what these men were doing to my family just a few months after burying my older son,” she said.
She said it left her traumatised.
Her house is on the roadside so when with cars passing at night, she finds it difficult to fall asleep because she is haunted by memories of the Sunday evening trauma.
Vanessa Burger, independent community activist for human rights and social justice, said it was disturbing for people to be tortured “apartheid-style” by police.
“The unidentified officers terrified the family’s elderly mother when they assaulted her son and threatened family members. These men had no search or arrest warrant, and no identification.”
“They continued torturing the man for about 45 minutes, before they forced a so-called confession from him. It must be remembered that when repeatedly deprived of oxygen while being beaten savagely about the head, a confession to absolutely anything will result,” Burger said.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesman Major Thulani Zwane said they were not aware of the incident and urged the victims to contact the station commander at their nearest police station, and to report the matter to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).
Ipid spokesman, Robbie Raburabu, said the Khuzwayo family needed to report the incident to their nearest Ipid office. He also requested the victims’ contact details.
Daily News