Durban - A Pietermaritzburg High Court judge has sent a strong message to police officers who remained silent on the assault of suspects, by changing five policemen’s correctional supervision and suspended sentences, for culpable homicide, to five years in jail.
Their hopes of setting aside their convictions were dashed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this week when Judge Graham Lopes - in a reserved judgment with which Judge Peter Olsen concurred - instead altered the sentence, considering it too lenient.
Each of them was present when a hijacking suspect was beaten to death, said Judge Lopes, yet they did not identify the correct perpetrator. They believed being silent would exonerate all of them.
“To allow them to do so would be to grant licence to police officers to assault accused persons at will.”
Njabulo Mkhize, Mbongeni Dlamini, Jabulani Zulu, Muzi Mbuyazi and Psychology Gumede, of the Ubombo police station, were convicted in the Empangeni Regional Court on February 8, 2013.
They were given a suspended five-year sentence.
The suspect, Bheki Cebekhulu, was booked out of his cell on July 10, 2009 and taken to the detectives’ office where he was assaulted.
After his death, Mkhize made a report saying he was busy questioning the man when Dlamini interrupted and asked if the man knew his friend and partner in crime had died at Jozini. When Cebekhulu heard that, he fell from the chair and died.
The judge said two doctors had testified that he had sustained extensive bruising and had died as a result of a blunt trauma to the neck. He would have died either immediately or within a few minutes of the blow to the neck.
Shock
Judge Lopes found that the policemen were all present when Cebekhulu died. He said correctional supervision as a sentence was applicable in cases where there was a lack of insight and education. These men were police officers and would have undergone the required training and understood only too well their duty to protect a suspect from assault in order to obtain information in the process of interrogation.
“The sentence induces a sense of shock because it does not begin to address the requirements of society with regard to the punishment for a crime of this nature,” he said.
Reports on the initial sentence said the policemen attended a series of orientation programmes. In addition, all except Mkhize underwent a period of house arrest.
The judge added that the policemen, under the guise of interrogation, beat Cebekhulu to death. That they had not intended to kill him, but merely induce information, did not assist in any way.
He said the policemen were duty bound to protect Cebekhulu from assault, be it from any of their colleagues or otherwise. To cover up, they maintained a wall of silence which demonstrated that they had no remorse whatsoever.
“Having been convicted and having then received what was effectively a ‘slap on the wrist’ for their crimes, they further demonstrated their lack of remorse by appealing against their convictions.”
There is no place in the SAPS for any police officer who behaves the way they did, the judge said.
A legal representative for the policemen said they could petition the Supreme Court of Appeal for special leave to appeal within 21 days. However, it was uncertain if this would be done.
Gareth Newham, the head of governance in the crime and justice division of the Institute for Security Studies, said the increase in sentence was welcomed. When police officers undermined the rule of law and public trust, it should be seen as a serious offence.
The Mercury