Johannesburg - Yet another man has died in police custody – this time a domestic violence suspect, who police say used his shoelaces to kill himself.
Locked up in the back of a police van outside the couple’s Douglasdale home, the man is said to have made a noose with his shoelaces, hanging himself while police officers were taking a statement from his wife.
His death comes just a week after two other men died in police custody, one in Daveyton on Monday and the other in Diepkloof on Tuesday last week.
Douglasdale police spokesman Warrant Officer Balan Muthan said on Thursday that a neighbour had called the police to the couple’s home in the early hours of Tuesday. When the police arrived, they had put the man in the back of the van to separate him from his wife.
While the officers were taking a statement from the man’s wife, he somehow made a noose with his shoelaces and hanged himself.
Muthan said the husband had not been arrested but rather detained for his and others’ safety, and for the questioning to run smoothly.
He said the man was not handcuffed. “You can’t have a police officer with him at the back of the van. If he was put at the back of a police car, instead of a van, he would have been handcuffed because it is easy to open the car doors.”
The case has been handed over to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
Last week, another man died in police custody a day after he was detained at the Diepkloof police cells in Soweto following a shootout with police.
He died on Tuesday morning after he was served breakfast.
Another was a Mozambican, who was found dead in the Daveyton, Ekurhuleni, police cells on Monday last week after he was arrested for being drunk in public in Etwatwa near Daveyton.
Police said Justice Malati was certified dead in the cells and they did not suspect foul play.
But relatives and neighbours told The Star they believed Malati was beaten up while in custody, and that his neck and face were swollen. He also had blood on the back of his head, said neighbour Poti Bheziya.
But this version was disputed by Gauteng police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini, who said police had received information that Malati allegedly banged his head against the cell wall before he went to sleep on Sunday night.
Dlamini said at the time that an investigation was under way.
When The Star arrived at the Douglasdale house on Thursday night, the man’s relatives were too distraught to speak. Community police forum chairman Jean Berdou said the incident had left the man’s family and the police officers at the scene traumatised.
“Both the family of the deceased and the officers will be receiving detailed trauma counselling.”
Berdou’s version of events corroborated that of the police.
“After talking to the wife, they (the officers) opened the back of the van so that they could take a statement from the man, but were shocked to find him dead with a noose made from his own shoelaces tied around his neck,” said Berdou. – Additional reporting by Kgopi Mabotja
The Star