Too much of a coincidence

Gumbi was the Premier League of Swaziland accountant and had the misfortune of having discovered that money kept in the organisation’s safe had grown legs. She died after having undergone treatment at the Mbabane Government Hospital, last week Thursday. She had made frequent trips to the hospital after having been taken in for questioning by the police in relation to the theft.

But, was she tortured at the police station and why who? For how long? And what type of methods were used to ‘interrogate’ her, as the police are fond of saying?

These are some of the questions the public now demands answers to, for it is alleged that soon after she was released from the police station, Gumbi needed medical attention.

Our police are known to employ deadly ‘interrogation’ tactics, which the Police PRO Wendy Hleta refuses to divulge from the time of Mbongeni ‘Mathousand’ Ngubane to Sipho Jele. There have been too many unexplained deaths at the hands of the police.

There have been too many reports of alleged torture in the past that it gets increasingly difficult to dismiss any more allegations. Members of the public are now afraid of going into a police station for question, for fear that they may not return alive.

Previously, the police have been able to dismiss such allegations and because most of their ‘victims’ have been alleged terror suspects, it was easy to believe the side of the police.

However, Vamile was not known to be a troublemaker, and to her credit, she is the one who reported the theft of the E3 800 to the police and volunteered to go there herself. She was not accused of having thrown petrol bombs or being found in possession of seditious documents.

She was just an accountant at an organisation who was trying to account for the money lost in her possession. Little did she know.

However, the police now have a case to answer for her death. We need to know what methods were employed on her to ‘try and make her talk’. We need to know who ‘tried to make her talk’. We need to know how many hours she was being interrogated.

The police are known to look after each other; so we would like to appeal to the commissioner that for the interest of their image, this should be a public enquiry to help us all understand and get a clear picture of what happened. After all, they have nothing to hide.

Admittedly, it is comforting that the police have already opened their own investigation into this matter. But so often these have come out to clear the police of any wrongdoing and have often left us with more questions than answers.

If the police are determined to clear their name and rid themselves of police officers who get carried away when interrogating suspects, it would be in their best interests to have that public inquiry.

The post-mortem to Gumbi’s death should also be made public, and this should be done by a private pathologist.

This, for us, is one death too many.

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