By Simon Nare
The Nkabinde Inquiry heard testimony from KwaMaphumulo Taxi Association chairperson Siphamandla Mhlongo on Monday, alleging that members of the long-disbanded Cato Manor organised crime unit unlawfully arrested and tortured him into confessing to the killing of a police officer.
The inquiry is investigating whether the South Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Andrew Chauke, is fit to hold office. Chauke allegedly acted outside his jurisdiction in Cato Manor unit prosecutions.
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Mhlongo told the inquiry he was “picked up” and handcuffed at a taxi rank, assaulted in public and then taken to Cato Manor police station. He said he initially thought some of the men apprehending him were from the national intelligence unit, but later realised they were from Cato Manor.
The inquiry, chaired by retired constitutional court justice Bess Nkabinde, has previously heard allegations that members of the unit waged a violent campaign against taxi operators from the KwaMaphumulo association, including extrajudicial killings, torture and the alleged planting of firearms to bolster later claims of self-defence.
Mhlongo alleged that after he was taken to Cato Manor police station, he was tortured while officers tried to force him to confess to the killing of Cato Manor unit officer Nkosi Zondi. “They used a rope to tie me to a chair so that I could not move, and on that backrest of the chair, one of them was pressing me with a shoe so that I could not move. Then they placed a plastic over my head so that I should suffocate.
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“It was done repeatedly, up until I urinated myself, defecated myself, not once, but a couple of times,” said Mhlongo.
He said that at one point he lost consciousness and officers threw water on him. Mhlongo said the torture lasted from 4am until 8pm.
“They wanted me to implicate myself or say what was my role in the killing of Zondi, [saying] I was giving them a wrong story not the one they were looking for. That is why I was kept there for so long,” he said.
Mhlongo said he tried to tell his interrogators what they wanted to hear in order to survive.
“I was implicating everyone, chairperson. If you are there, you will have to create a story to say, ‘I’ve killed someone, and I was with [this other person] so that you can survive.
“Otherwise, if you say you don’t know, they will kill you,” he said.
He said another accused, whom he identified as Mr Mkhize, was later brought into the interrogation room “screaming” while officers held a gun to his forehead.
“He came crying and said to me, ‘Please, say what they want you to say so that we can survive.’. I asked him, ‘What do you mean?’ he said, ‘Just agree that we are the ones who killed Nkosi,’” said Mhlongo.
Mhlongo is due to continue his testimony on Tuesday.