The High Court has found two police officers responsible for torturing a Lubombo mechanic who was accused of stealing tractor parts from his former employer.
This was contained in a judgment delivered by Justice Sabelo Masuku who ruled that Sandile William Hlongwane was unlawfully arrested, detained, assaulted and tortured by police officers investigating a theft complaint that later unravelled when the allegedly stolen tractor parts were found at the complainant’s own workshop.
Hlongwane had instituted action against the National Commissioner of Police and Eswatini Government for civil damages in the sum of E2 million.
Court records revealed that he was tied to a bench, handcuffed beneath it and suffocated with a plastic bag by police officers who were trying to force a confession.
The court declared Hlongwane’s arrest and detention unlawful and found that Detective Constable Siyabonga Shiba and Constable Dumsani Tsabedze assaulted and tortured him while acting within the course and scope of their employment with the Royal Eswatini Police Service.
Justice Masuku further ruled that Hlongwane was entitled to claim damages for unlawful arrest, detention, assault and torture, with the amount to be determined during a future hearing.
The judgment stems from events of August 15 and 16, 2020 when Hlongwane, a mechanic who had worked for Moneni businessman Cedric Ngwenya since 2014, was summoned to Manzini Police Station over allegations that he had stolen tractor parts from Ngwenya’s workshop.
According to evidence accepted by the court, Hlongwane reported to the station after receiving a call from Detective Shiba.
Upon arrival, he was questioned by Shiba and Tsabedze about tractor parts allegedly stolen from Ngwenya. Hlongwane denied stealing anything and repeatedly asked police to produce a list of the parts he was accused of taking.
The officers allegedly refused and insisted that he already knew what he had stolen. The court heard that matters quickly escalated.
Hlongwane testified that Tsabedze slapped him and threatened him with further violence unless he confessed. He told the court that officers then showed him a wooden bench they called a “donkey”, forced him to lie on it facing upwards, tied his body and legs to the bench with ropes and handcuffed his hands beneath it. A plastic bag was then pulled over his head and mouth, making it difficult for him to breathe.
He said the officers left him in the interrogation room and instructed him to strike the bench with his handcuffs when he was ready to reveal where the parts were.
Desperate to end the ordeal, Hlongwane said he eventually asked to call his family and tell them to surrender tractor parts kept at his home even though they belonged to customers and family members.
He testified that the torture continued until a female police officer entered the room and questioned why he was being treated that way when there were no exhibits linking him to the alleged crime.
The following morning, police transported him in handcuffs to his parental home at Ka-Ndzangu. The court heard that police first stopped near a shebeen where community members Themba Tsabedze and Fikile Mkhabela were called to witness the operation.
According to Hlongwane, officers asked Themba Tsabedze whether he knew that he was a thief before taking the witnesses to his family homestead.
At the homestead, Hlongwane was allegedly paraded before relatives while handcuffed. His younger brother Sebenele was instructed to remove tractor parts from the house because Hlongwane could not do so himself.
Among the items surrendered were an injector pump, injectors, levelling boxes, ball joints, tie-rod ends and pistons. Hlongwane told the court that the parts belonged either to customers whose tractors he serviced or to members of his family.
His mother, Anna Tifakile Hlongwane, corroborated much of his evidence. She testified that the police had visited the homestead during the early hours of August 15 looking for her son and they later returned with him handcuffed and demanded tractor parts they claimed had been stolen.
She said officers could not explain exactly what they were looking for and failed to produce a search warrant when asked.
The court also heard from independent witness Themba Tsabedze who testified that he found Hlongwane handcuffed and crying at the back of a police van. He said he noticed blood oozing from Hlongwane’s nose. When he asked what had happened, Hlongwane told him that the police had beaten and “tubed” him.
The witness described Hlongwane as a Christian with no known history of criminal behaviour.
Another witness, Ntokozo Hlongwane, testified that he visited his brother at Manzini Police Station on the night of the arrest. He said Hlongwane appeared seriously distressed, had bloodshot eyes, swollen facial features and visible veins on his forehead.
The turning point in the case came after police took the recovered tractor parts to the station and summoned Ngwenya to identify them. Evidence before court showed that Ngwenya could not immediately identify all the items as his. For the first time, he drew up a list of parts he claimed were missing.
Hlongwane then informed the police that the items listed by Ngwenya were still at the Moneni workshop. The court heard that Ngwenya acknowledged that most of the parts he had reported stolen were present at the workshop.
The judge noted several serious shortcomings in the police investigation, which was that police arrested Hlongwane without first obtaining a proper inventory of the allegedly stolen items.
Justice Masuku found that there was no reliable list of missing property before the arrest and that officers appeared to be investigating after arresting the suspect rather than before.
While officers testified that Hlongwane had admitted stealing the parts and agreed to compensate Ngwenya, the official plea filed by the defendants stated that the arrest may have been wrongful.
Justice Masuku ultimately concluded that police had failed to demonstrate reasonable grounds for arresting Hlongwane without a warrant.
“On the totality of the evidence it is difficult to accept that the police had knowledge of what specific items they were investigating prior to effecting the arrest,” the judge said.
The court further found that the evidence of torture was corroborated and largely unchallenged.
“Such conduct constitutes a gross violation of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights to dignity, freedom and security of the person and freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” Justice Masuku ruled.
The court ruled in Hlongwane’s favour on the unlawful arrest, detention, assault and torture claims while postponing the determination of damages to a later date.
