‘3 MISCARRIAGES AFTER POLICE TORTURE’

MBABANE – A woman who was accused of harbouring her wanted boyfriend has alleged that she had three miscarriages due to being tortured by the police.

Thandolwakhe Ntshangase (27) of Ndabazezwe under Chief Gasawangwane, has since instituted proceedings at the High Court to be granted special leave in terms of Section 4(1) of the Limitation of Legal Proceedings Against Government Act, 1972, to sue government. She said she was unable to file her claim against government timeously because she thought she would do so after the police had been prosecuted. She found herself out of time in terms of the Act, hence her current application. According to the Act, she was to file her claim within 24 months, as per Section 2(1)(c).

Ntshangase submitted that her attorneys, DEMHleta Legal, advised her that the timeframe within which she could sue government had elapsed. She alleged that she was wrongfully and unlawfully tortured, assaulted and detained by Lavumisa police without justifiable cause in January 2018. “I was taken into custody and tortured for the whole night,” she alleged.

Stabbing

Ntshangase told the court that the police raided a house belonging to her then boyfriend’s sister. She said the police were looking for her boyfriend, Melusi Myeni, who was wanted for stabbing a man in a bar. Ntshangase said she knew nothing about the offence her then boyfriend was accused of having committed, but she was nevertheless arrested. “In fact, when they arrived at his sister’s residence, they took him first and left me and his sister in the house. When they were passing by the window in front of the house, I overheard one of them saying lesif*** sakhe sisishiyelani (why are we leaving the girl behind)? Let us take the b***h,” she alleged. The veracity of these allegations is still to be tested in court. The national commissioner of police is the first respondent in the matter.

Ntshangase submitted that she was taken into custody and charged for failure to report the whereabouts of Myeni, her now former boyfriend. Myeni’s sister was never arrested.  She said she was acquitted and discharged of the charge. She informed the court that when she reached the police station in Lavumisa, the officers allegedly took turns torturing her in an attempt to make her confess to committing an offence with Myeni.

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