REDRESS/AMANI
written statements and confessions, police diaries and logs, video evidence and
other exhibits, all of which had emerged in the trial-within-a-trial. She found the
police had deliberately made false entries in their records, altered written
statements, lied to the court, been evasive in their evidence, and had fundamentally
violated the most basic human rights of the men on trial.
In uncompromising language she threw out the incriminating statements,
indications and even video recordings with the concluding comment: The evidence
of the State witnesses who are police officers is fraught with conflict and
inconsistencies. The witnesses conducted themselves in a shameless fashion and
displayed utter contempt for the due administration of justice to the extent that
they were prepared to indulge in what can only be described as works of fiction
The
magnitude of their complicity was such as to put paid [sic] to this court attaching
any weight to the truth or accuracy of their statements. 138 As a result, the
evidence of the accused was accepted, some of which included the accounts
below.139
Remember Moyo was hit by a rifle-butt, pushed out of the back of a moving police
vehicle while shackled in leg-irons and handcuffs, had his head banged against a car
wheel, was held on the ground on his back with his legs-spread eagled while
Detective Superintendent Matira took running jumps landing on his genitals with
booted feet; he bled from his nose and ears, lost consciousness and was so badly
injured he could hardly walk; later he was further assaulted in a cell, kept stripped
naked, shackled and beaten by more policemen, a former MDC member Ian Sibanda
and war veterans including Jabulani Sibanda, then chairman of the Bulawayo War
Veterans Association.
Khetani Sibanda was kidnapped by persons unknown, blindfolded and taken to an
unknown house where he was detained, assaulted and threatened by men who later
revealed themselves as CIO; he was forced to adopt a story implicating other MDC
members in Nkalas murder with the express purpose of discrediting the MDC; he
was forced to repeat all the details and learn them by heart, his resistance broken
by repeated assaults and threats of harm to his relatives, particularly his parents;
this went on for three days; at night he was taken to the burial site as part of this
fabrication; at one point D/Supt Matira pulled out a firearm and threatened to shoot
him; at another stage he was taken to Ncema dam near Esigodoni and told that if
he didnt co-operate he would be fed to the crocodiles; he was deprived of food,
water and sleep. Sibanda was one of those who had been shown on State television
indicatingthe place where Nkalas body had been found.
Sazini Mpofu was with his girlfriend when arrested and they were both assaulted by
being kicked and punched; he was driven around Bulawayo for many hours while
being assaulted in and out of the vehicle, and at the police station; all the time he
was being forced to implicate others; he was also assaulted before being taken on
indications.He too was shown on State television
revealingwhere the dead man
had been placed.
None of the torturers have been prosecuted, nor any of the police officers
disciplined.
138
The State v Sonny Nicholas Masera and Five Others, HH 50-2004, 2 March 2004, judgement of Mrs Justice
Sandra Mungwira.
139
Ibid.
27
Select target paragraph3
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