By Johnathan Paoli
Human-rights researcher and academic Mary de Haas delivered damning testimony before Parliament’s ad-hoc committee into allegations of criminal justice system capture on Tuesday.
The eThekwini-based violence monitor described an alleged pattern of intimidation, psychological violence, and evidence fabrication by the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT).
De Haas painted the PKTT as an opaque and coercive unit that targeted both suspects and police officers who made politically inconvenient breakthroughs.
“The fabrication of evidence is a common theme. I’m hearing horror stories! Human suffering! Dreadful stuff!” she said.
Evidence leader and Advocate Norman Arendse (SC) led De Haas through her long history of documenting violence in KwaZulu-Natal, noting her early work exposing apartheid security police abuses in the 1970s and 80s; a period, she said, when her research frequently took her into shebeens and conflict-ridden communities to gather testimony.
De Haas said that her current work was a continuation
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