‘KIDNAPPED’ COP: PLAN WAS TO USE DEPUTY NATCOM IN RAID FOR GUNS

MANZINI - The foiled intrusion at the deputy national commissioner of police’s home on Monday night stopped a plan to invade Manzini Police Station for guns.

This was revealed by the police officer whose car was left idling at the homestead of Deputy National Commissioner (NATCOM) of Police, Lydia Dlamini, after a relative of the senior official in the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS), opened fire as he approached the intruders. The police officer, whose name is known to this publication, but has been deliberately withheld, was found in one of the country’s health facilities yesterday morning, where he was being treated for suspected drugging.

The police officer purported that on Monday night, at around midnight, he was kidnapped by five armed men. The law enforcer claimed that he left Matsapha Police Camp to check his girlfriend, who also resides in Matsapha, but when he was at KaHlobile, just before Mathangeni, a silver grey BMW with foreign registration numbers that had been tailing his vehicle, signalled him to stop by flashing its lights. He claimed to have stopped with the assumption that it was his friends from South Africa (SA). However, he claimed that immediately after stopping the car, three men who were purportedly armed with guns (pistols), jumped into his car. He alleged that the gunmen ordered him to drive them to the residence of one of the male senior officials in the police service, which is located on the outskirts of the city of Manzini. However, the officer, who was speaking from his hospital bed, claimed that he told the gunmen that he did not know the location of the senior official’s homestead.

Guns

After that, he alleged that the gunmen ordered him to drive them to Dlamini’s homestead, something which he did as they had their guns aimed at him. The cop supposed that the gunmen were threatening to kill him if he failed to take their orders. As he drove them towards Manzini direction, he alleged that the BMW was following them at a distance with two other occupants. Thereafter, he claimed that when they were in close proximity to Dlamini’s homestead, he stopped and they ordered him to board the BMW. He alleged that the two gunmen in the BMW gave him juice and ordered him to drink it as they drove away from the township where Dlamini resided. “They drove until we reached Divine Healing Ministries International Auditorium (at Sterksroom) and stopped near the church,” the police officer alleged. In his narration, the law enforcer claimed that while travelling with the gunmen, he intercepted some of their discussions and he heard them saying after accomplishing their mission at Dlamini’s home, they would take him to Manzini Police Station, where he was to be used to gain entry.

According to his understanding, when they stopped by the Divine Healing Ministries International’s auditorium, they were supposed to be joined by the trio after carrying out their mission, which was unknown to him. However, the police officer claimed that while they were supposedly waiting for the other three gunmen, who were using his car, he fell asleep. According to his narration, he woke up in a house which only had a sleeping mattress. “I do not know where the house is located because I was asleep when they drove there,” he added.
Furthermore, he alleged that he suspect that the juice was laced with a drug because he could not properly recall what happened after taking it. As such, he claimed that he was asleep the whole day on Tuesday and woke up near the Nazarene Traffic Lights at night (on Tuesday), where he was assisted, supposedly by Good Samaritans to hospital. At the hospital, he was reportedly given something to drink to clean his stomach.

When this publication’s reporters arrived at the hospital, the police officer was with some of his friends, who had paid him a visit and medical practitioners were running some tests as he was supposed to see a doctor. When he was asked if the police had visited him to record a statement, since they were aware that the car which was found abandoned near Dlamini’s homestead belonged to him, given that his national identity card was found inside it, he responded to the negative. The law enforcer said his colleagues investigating the matter had not come to pay him a visit and or follow up on what happened. However, he claimed to have notified some of his relatives and they promised to let the police know about the developments.

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