LPM 4 TO TESTIFY IN TRIAL OF ACCUSED TORTURE COP - 23 August, 2005
August 23, 2005
The trial of the SA Police Crime Intelligence Unit head accused of spearheading the midnight interrogation, assault, torture and attempted abduction of four LPM Gauteng activists detained on election day last year is expected to begin in earnest tomorrow in the Protea Magistrate's Court, Soweto.
| The Landless People's Movement Gauteng |
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LANDLESS PEOPLE'S MOVEMENT
PRESS ALERT!!!
"LPM 4 TO TESTIFY IN TRIAL OF ACCUSED TORTURE COP FROM TOMORROW"
The trial of the SA Police Crime Intelligence Unit head accused of spearheading the midnight interrogation, assault, torture and attempted abduction of four LPM Gauteng activists detained on election day last year is expected to begin in earnest tomorrow in the Protea Magistrate's Court, Soweto.
CI Unit Head Superintendent Simangaliso Patrick Simelane faces assault charges in relation to the midnight interrogation of LPM Gauteng Chairperson Maureen Mnisi and LPM Gauteng activists Ann Eveleth, Samantha Hargreaves and Moses Mahlangu by a group of people who took them out of their cells at the Protea North Police cells for a series of interrogations at the local Crime Intelligence Services office on the gaol premises. In the course of the evening, Mnisi was assaulted in her cell by a woman officer (who has still not been charged although charges were laid against her), and narrowly escaped abduction by people associated with the accused who tried to take her off the gaol premises; Eveleth and Hargreaves were subjected to interrogation, assault and rubber suffocation torture; and Mahlangu was interrogated and assaulted. All were threatened to stop working with the LPM. NB: Although the South African Police Services has a policy against the use of torture, the SA Criminal Procedure Act makes no provision for a charge of 'torture', and it for this reason that Simelane is charged with 'assault'.
The trial, already postponed twice at the request of the defence, is set down to proceed for four days beginning tomorrow, Tuesday 23 August, 2005 - more than 16 months after the incident, which was reported by the LPM 4 to both police and the Independent Complaints Directorate immediately after the event.
The LPM 4 were part of a group of about 60 LPM activists arrested at an empty taxi rank in the veld on the edge of the impoverished Thembelihle informal settlement outside Lenasia in connection with an alleged 'illegal demonstration' at the end of the LPM's national "No Land! No Vote!" campaign launched months earlier to highlight the LPM's long-standing demand for a national Land Summit and a fundamental review of the country's market-led willing seller-willing buyer land reform programme. The LPM 4 are part of the LPM's "Democracy 52" who are still attending their ongoing trial for this allegedly illegal demonstration, the next appearance for which is set down for 14 September in the Lenasia Magistrate's Court. Neither they nor any other LPM member arrested that day were ever charged with a single act of violence, and police witnesses testifying against them in that case have already told the court that none of the LPM members arrested had engaged in violence or carried a single weapon.
The Election Day police violence against the larger group of detained LPM members also included several acts of assault and teargassing in confined spaces (for which no police officers have yet been charged) and, together with the treatment of Anti-Eviction Campaign activist Max Ntanyana by police in Cape Town, marked the beginning of the known use of scientific torture methods against social movement activists held in custody in the post-apartheid era. The case was reported in the 2004 report of Amnesty International, which has been monitoring the proceedings since the incident.
The LPM Gauteng invites all media and activists interested in the protection of the hard-won Constitutional protection of freedom of expression rights - inclusive of the fairly common democratic principle of free political activity - to attend and cover this important trial.
ISSUED BY: The Landless People's Movement Gauteng on 22 August, 2005.
FOR MORE INFO: Contact LPM Gauteng Chairperson Maureen Mnisi on 082-337-4514
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