Bhantshana's wife feels the pain

...battered Bhantshana calls home

She said the man sounded very depressed by the incident and this forced her to try to go to Mbabane.

However, she ended up not going because he promised to come home the following day.

She said she learnt most details of the incident through the media.

"Gwebu came home the following day and he had bruises. His face was swollen. He spent a night before leaving for work. I persuaded him to take the matter to court and he agreed," she said.

Gwebu was assaulted by soldiers who were on board a Quantum kombi from the Ministry of National Defen-ce.

The vehicle was registered S348.

He had stopped it at a roadblock in Mvutshini to find out if the driver had authority and other documents were in order. The soldiers were on their way to Nkoyoyo.

However, after discovering that the vehicle was being used without official travel authority papers, Gwebu confiscated the keys and started writing out a ticket for the driver, identified as Senzo Zikalala. He did the paperwork on the bonnet of a traffic police vehicle, a short distance from the army vehicle. Before he could give the driver a ticket and documents summoning him to court, the driver is said to have left for the Quantum, only to return with other soldiers.

Even though Gwebu managed to quickly slide into a police traffic sedan, the soldiers yanked him out through the window and started assaulting him. Some police officers who were at the scene tried to intervene but they were pushed off. The soldiers later drove away, leaving Gwebu injured. "I am very saddened by this incident. The soldiers’ behaviour towards my husband was inhumane," she said.

"I was also not pleased by the statement from the army spokesman Khanya Dlamini, who said my husband had been hit by a moving train. This statement on its own does not show remorse on the soldiers’ part. I think the army should have easily called the Anti-Abuse Unit and informed authorities not to stop their kombi if it was rushing for an important assignment. I don’t think Gwebu would have stopped them. Like other sympathetic people, I am very disappointed by the soldiers’ arrogant behaviour." She said as a family, they had not yet met to discuss the matter except that she only advised Gwebu to take the matter to court.

"I advised him to take the matter to court and he agreed. I don’t know if he has taken my advice. I fear for his life because his job has made him create many enemies. I understand there are many people Gwebu nabbed after he found them abusing government cars. Some of them are aggrieved. Abamunambitsi kahle (They don’t like him)," she said.

Joyce explained that Gwe-bu usually infor-med her when he had char-ged someone, especially senior gover-nment authorities, for abusing govern-ment cars.

Gwebu has been a pain in the neck for some senior government officers, as he has caught several of them misu-sing government vehicles.