DURBAN - Victims of police brutality, living in Glebelands, are hoping the Moerane Commission of Inquiry will recommend drastic security measures be implemented at the notorious hostel, in its pending report.
Sandile Mbele is one such victim. He sustained serious injuries after he was allegedly thrown from a window during a police raid recently.
Mbele and others hope the testimonies of witnesses such as social justice activist Vanessa Burger and Amar Maharaj, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) ethics manager, bring peace to the troubled hostel.
Maharaj accused the provincial police watchdog unit of incompetence and of closing cases without any proper investigation.
The uMlazi-based hostel is usually crawling with heavily-armed police officers but people are still being killed, with the latest death ocurring on Tuesday.
Since March 2014, 93 murders have been committed. In that time, residents at the violence-riddled hostel have accused police of assaulting and torturing them, and Ipid’s investigations have yielded zero results.
The widely-reported cases were those of Xolisa Yena and Zinakile Fica, who were allegedly beaten and tortured while being questioned about firearms in 2014.
Fica died while in police custody and those living in the hostel believe he succumbed to injuries he suffered during interrogation.
“We’ve long been saying that some of the police officers were mistreating us but no one listened even after a man (Fica) died, so we were happy when witnesses testified at the commission. The truth is now in the open,” said a resident who asked not to be named, fearing reprisal.
He accused the SAPS officers of assaulting him and suffocating him with a plastic bag in 2015. He alleged that officers barged into his room at night and demanded that he hand over a gun.
“When I told them that I didn’t own any weapon except a knobkierie they beat me up and put a plastic bag over my head for a few minutes at a time,” he recalled.
He had badly bruised ribs, was unable to walk the next day and his urine showed traces of blood for almost a week after the incident.
Some hostel dwellers told the Sunday Tribune that they did not report police brutality because they didn’t trust Ipid.
“It’s now a regular thing. Whenever they (the police) are bored, they beat us under the pretence of looking for weapons, but they never find anything, and yet people are constantly being shot.
“That’s because the people who are doing the killings are either feared or buddies with the police,” claimed Innocent Jali.
Mbele allegedly suffered police brutality twice. In May, he was thrown from a window in his second-storey room.
“I was woken when my door got kicked in by police, who kicked and slapped me. They demanded I hand them my gun and turned my room upside down.
“When I said I didn’t have one, they accused me of throwing it out of the window before they entered. So they pushed me out of the window, saying I must go and fetch it.”
His multiple injuries included a fractured leg and wrist.
Ipid spokesperson Moses Dlamini disputed the allegation. He said Ipid would be making its own presentation before the Moerane Commission tomorrow, which would prove that Maharaj’s testimony was “based on ignorance” and “made for an ulterior purpose”.