Civil suit against police: Officers' version

KNYSNA NEWS - She didn’t see his pain, nor did she hear his screams, said Constable Julia Masumi of the Knysna police when she testified in the trial of a 42-year-old man of Concordia who claims he was unlawfully arrested, assaulted and then unlawfully detained in the holding cells.

Masumi (38) and Tsepiso Nombhayeke (36), formerly a senior provincial officer at the Knysna traffic department appeared to testify in court after the plaintiff, Nkosinathi Yokwana (42) opened a civil suit against the Minister of Police for R200 000.

According to Yokwana (who is represented by advocate Alfred Schmidt of George on instructions of attorney Donald Curtis of Mosdell, Pama & Cox) the incident happened on November 1, 2013, when policemen and a traffic officer (Nombhayeke) came to his house looking for him. There, in front of his neighbours, he was arrested allegedly without any explanation, his hands handcuffed behind his back and he was instructed to get into the back of one of the two police vans.

He said as the one police officer slammed the van’s door closed, his big toe got caught between the hinges of the door. He said he screamed, because it was extremely painful, but they ignored him. When his wife Inia heard him cry, she looked into the van, saw what had happened, but when she alerted the police officers, they allegedly told her “he is being punished”.

With his toe still stuck, the two officers drove off at high speed, over (eight) speed bumps and through sharp turns, while disregarding his agonising cries. He said when they reached the police station he was denied painkillers and was only taken to hospital for medical treatment the next day for a badly bruised and swollen toe. After being kept in the holding cells over the weekend, he was released with a warning from court three days later.

While assisted by interpreter Patience April in Xhosa on Tuesday, February 9, Masumi admitted before Chief Magistrate Isak van der Merwe she was with the police officer, Constable Thamsanqua Maqungo, who arrested the plaintiff and shut the door of the police van after he was instructed to get in, but said she didn’t hear him scream of pain. She said she also wasn’t aware of his cries while she and her colleague drove to the police station and that he was walking “normally” when he was taken into custody.

Nombhayeke, who resigned last year after 12-years of service at the Knysna traffic department and has since started working as a senior provincial traffic officer at the Kou-Kamma municipality in the Eastern Cape, also said she wasn’t aware of Yokwana’s discomfort during the incident. Both women told the attorney for the Minister of Police, André van Niekerk of Braam Swart & Partners, that at the time of Yokwana’s arrest, they heard clearly how Maqungo (who hasn’t testified yet) told the plaintiff he was being arrested for malicious damage to property.

According to Nombhayeke, as she was driving home after finishing her shift on the night of the incident, she saw Yokwana “zig-zagging” across the road coming down Concordia Street and nearly hitting an oncoming taxi. When she stopped to reprimand him, she said he threw “an unknown object” at her with the intent to harm her, but it instead badly damaged the bonnet of her state-owned car.

She said she then called for police “back-up”, told the police officers what had happened and Yokwana was duly arrested. The trial, which began on September 21, will resume on April 26.

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ARTICLE: INGRID LEHMENSICH-BOTHA, KNYSNA-PLETT HERALD CORRESPONDENT

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