Mystery surrounds violent death at police station

Dane Nair, 26, was found dead, his body slumped over the seat of his white Nissan bakkie, which was parked near the charge office of the Port Shepstone station.

Dane Nair, 26, was found dead, his body slumped over the seat of his white Nissan bakkie, which was parked near the charge office of the Port Shepstone station.

Published Mar 24, 2017

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Durban - The police have been accused of turning a blind eye to an incident in which a young KwaZulu-Natal man, seeking protection against those wanting to kill him, died violently outside their station.

Refusing to believe that Dane Nair had taken his own life - as the police had allegedly led them to believe - the man’s family from Albersville, South Coast, have taken the matter all the way to Parliament in their quest for the truth to emerge.

Last week there was a glimmer of hope for the family when the docket was changed from an inquest to murder.

It was was nine months ago when Nair, 26, was found dead, his body slumped over the seat of his white Nissan bakkie, which was parked at the foot of the stairs leading to the charge office of the Port Shepstone station.

Dane Nair's bakkie parked outside the Port Shepstone police station, where he was found dead.

His sweater was around his neck and he had a laceration from just below the ear to the front of the throat.

At the time police claimed it was a suicide, pointing to alleged “self-inflicted” wounds, including a badly busted lip.

The post-mortem put the cause of death as “smothering”, but his family claims several wounds, including bite marks on his knuckles, were not mentioned in the report.

They hired a private investigator and last week consulted with former top prosecutor Gerrie Nel to help them solve the mystery.

Nel, who oversaw the convictions of Paralympian Oscar Pistorius and former police chief Jackie Selebi, had resigned from the National Prosecuting Authority earlier this year and joined Afrikaner rights group AfriForum.

The family claim that police not only botched the initial investigation by not properly examining Nair’s vehicle and failing to dust for fingerprints and take DNA swabs.

Nair’s sister, Rani Landsberg, said her younger brother had gone to the police station to report that he was being threatened. But the police did not pay any attention, she claimed.

She said she and her family, in the presence of three high-ranking police officers, had watched CCTV footage showing her brother at the charge office on the evening of June 27.

Nair, who ran a glass and aluminium business from his parents’ home, where he also lived, had feared for his life, his family believes, after landing a new contract that made some people envious.

Landsberg said he had confided to their father that there was a hit out on him, but he dismissed this, joking that his son was a “battler with an old van”.

Nair slept with a crowbar next to his bed and, after allegedly getting no help from police that evening, he sat on a bench inside the station texting someone on his cellphone.

The footage then showed the dim lights of a car entering the parking lot.

“My brother recognises the car and immediately ducks behind the door. He speaks to the two officers, but they don’t even pick up their heads,” Landsberg said.

Nair again peers outside the window.

“We could see him mentally psyching himself up,” Landsberg said, adding her brother then sent a WhatsApp message to a neighbour asking him to bring R1000 for bail, as if he knew there would be a fight and he would be arrested.

“He was a cage fighter and a body-builder. Obviously he would have put up a fight.”

The time was 7:49pm when Nair went outside the charge office, where there were no cameras. Ten minutes later, a final, chilling, message appeared on his WhatsApp status.

A screen grab of Nair’s WhatsApp status.

It read: “Good bye my friends and family thank you mom and dad for collecting money for me to be killed.”

Said Landsberg: “My brother did not type that. He always referred to our mother as ma, or mummy.”

Also, he always used text chat abbreviations, unlike the formal message sent.

But nothing could be retrieved from his phone because it was found smashed to pieces in the back of his bakkie - a day later - and only after the family demanded the vehicle be searched a second time, she said.

The family also claims that:

When they asked for a copy of the video footage, they were told that it was “corrupted”.

An official police form recorded the death was due to “hanging”.

It was recorded that the form was filled in at 9pm, but it was confirmed that the body was found at 9:40pm.

An ambulance was called at 10:40pm.

The post-mortem report did not mention his broken nose and finger.

Nair’s Facebook posts, in which he alluded to those trying to get him, have been deleted, but not by him.

Unhappy with the way the case was handled, the family left Nair’s bakkie covered and untouched while they convinced another state forensic officer to examine it.

By then four months had passed and, while an empty Hunter’s cider bottle was found inside - Nair did not consume alcohol - it was never tested for prints or DNA.

The family is still awaiting the results of toxicology tests but is certain that, while Nair did not take drugs, traces of drugs would be found. “Because no one is able to overcome my brother unless he is drugged.”

Landsberg said the unexplained death had taken a toll on her family.

“Our dad’s health had deteriorated terribly. We are all taking it very, very badly."

“The police are treating this as a very light matter,” she said.

POST put the allegations to the police, but all spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbhele would say was that a case of murder was now being investigated.

POST

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