Xolani Koyana
THE Cape Town City Improvement District (CCID) has suspended two security guards pending a probe into their role in a brutal attack on a Nigerian man in central Cape Town.
Two police officers were arrested and are to appear in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court today on assault charges after the attack was captured on video and went viral on social networks.
CCID chief operating officer Tasso Evangelinos said yesterday that the body had suspended two security guards pending a full investigation.
The CCID would co-ordinate its investigation with the police and the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), he said.
The CCID would release a full statement this morning, Evangelinos said.
The video shows the two warrant officers and CCID members assaulting Nigerian Clement Emekensha and bundling him into a vehicle. Emekensha is stripped of his underwear, then kicked and punched in the groin several times.
The incident took place in full view of the public in Riebeek Street on Thursday.
The video led to Ipid launching an investigation, spokesman Moses Dlamini said.
He said the two officers, aged 42 and 45, had been arrested on Friday evening. Dlamini said investigators had taken witness statements.
Dlamini said the officers faced assault charges, and other charges might be added.
“The Ipid wishes to thank members of the community for filming this incident and ensuring that it comes out. The arrest would not have happened without the vigilance of the public,” Dlamini said.
Provincial police commissioner Arno Lamoer suspended the officers and condemned their behaviour.
Emekensha had suffered head and back injuries, his sister, Nena Emekensha, said.
“It is bad. He even lost his phone when they were beating him,” she said, adding that he made a living selling jewellery.
The head of the Nigerian Union in the Western Cape, Azu Okparaugo, congratulated Lamoer for taking action.
“That sort of action cannot be condoned. Irrespective of what the guy did, that is not how a man of the law should be doing things. They should have arrested him and let the law take its course. Instead, they acted like savages,” Okparaugo said.
Okparaugo said the police had taken Emekensha to Somerset Hospital for a check-up before taking him to a police station where he was released without being charged.
Police portfolio committee chairwoman Annelize van Wyk said the arrest of suspects should be done within the constraints of the law.
“It is unacceptable that such force and attack on the dignity of an individual was used,” Van Wyk said.
ANC provincial chairman Marius Fransman said the party was outraged that a man “who posed no visible threat was stripped naked (and) hit or kicked in the groin”.