Times Of Swaziland: BOY (17) BEATEN, DIES IN MISTAKEN IDENTITY

BOY (17) BEATEN, DIES IN MISTAKEN IDENTITY
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Phiwase Phungwayo on 31/10/2019 08:52:00


MAHWALALA – The alleged brutality of community police has once again reared
its ugly head.
Unfortunately this time around, it was blended with mistaken identity of the
suspect. An all-night interrogation of Celumusa Dlamini and five others resulted
in the death of the former, who was mistaken to have been part of a gang that
robbed an old man of the area. Dlamini (17), who it later transpired was not
part of the gang which is suspected to have committed the robbery, died due to
injuries that were allegedly inflicted on him by the community police during the
interrogation. Knobkerries and batons were allegedly some of the objects that
were used by the community police members to ‘retrieve the truth’ from the
minor and the five others.
Narrating the events leading to Dlamini’s death, Winile Zwane, who is the
mother of the deceased, said news of an elderly man who was robbed of his E6 000
spread like wildfire.
“I was on night duty at 12:06am when I got a call from a man who told me he
was a community police member. He asked me if I knew if my son was mischievous
and I said no,” she recalled.
Troublesome
Zwane further recounted that she heard the man ordering her son to inform her
that he was troublesome, which the son allegedly did. With shock, the mother
claimed that she asked what her son did. She added that her son notified her
that he had robbed a man of his E6 000 with his gang of friends last Friday at
the area’s junction. She alleged that her son was saying all this under duress
from the man as she overheard him on the phone. The deceased’s mother stated
that this came as a shock to her and she asked her son when and where he had
done this since she was with him (son) on Friday. Zwane alleged that the man who
claimed to be a community police member asked her if she was with her son when
staging the robbery and she responded to the negative.  Abruptly, Zwane claimed
that the man cut the call.
Much to her amazement, the mother recounted that she called the number back and
requested the man to explain to her what was happening.