Four policemen were sentenced to three years in prison for assault by the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court on Monday.
Morne Sweeney, 36, Cavin Siebritz, 39, Trevor Williams, 43, and Etienne Oelofse, 40, were found guilty of assaulting Sisa Nyamanda, by hitting him with clenched fists, kicking him with their boots on and spraying him with pepper spray.
Four policemen were sentenced to three years in prison for assault by the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court on Monday.
Morne Sweeney, 36, Cavin Siebritz, 39, Trevor Williams, 43, and Etienne Oelofse, 40, were found guilty of assaulting Sisa Nyamanda, by hitting him with clenched fists, kicking him with their boots on and spraying him with pepper spray.
The incident took place in Extension 6 in July 2008. According to court documents Nyamanda, who is also a policeman, was woken by the officers at his house around 10pm on a Sunday night, under the pretence that they wanted to ask him questions outside.
Nyamanda was asked to hand over both his service pistol and his private firearm, and obliged. As he went to get other documents from his house, he saw more than 20 policemen in his yard. He asked what they were doing, and why they had entered his house from the back. The court hear that the officers did not respond and, instead, one of them told him he was under arrest. He asked for reasons for his arrest, but, according to court documents, instead of getting an answer, he was pepper-sprayed from all directions, then ordered to lie down on his stomach.
He was kicked repeatedly and ordered out into the yard. Nyamanda pleaded with the officers to take him outside, as his eyes were still blinded by the pepper spray. Instead, they again threw him to the ground and continued to assault him, in full view of his wife and neighbours. He was thrown into the back of a police vehicle and taken to the Grahamstown police station.
A doctor who examined him found he had lacerations on the back of his head, swollen eyes, bruises all over his body, and was bleeding behind his eyeballs. The doctor concluded that the injuries were consistent with the kicking. In mitigation of sentence, the policemen's attorney, Marius Wolmarans, asked for a suspended sentence with the option of a fine.
“Direct imprisonment will make them lose their jobs, and this will have detrimental effects on their families," he said. He argued that they should not be removed from society by sentencing them to prison. However, magistrate Ronny Lesele sentenced the men to three years imprisonment, one of which was suspended for five years.
They were also declared not fit to possess firearms and were ordered to hand over their firearms, ammunition and firearm licences to the Grahamstown police station within 24 hours. Handing down sentence, Lesele said Nyamanda had been attacked by his colleagues, on whom he relied for his protection, and that the assault was unprovoked and callous.
“Direct imprisonment will be the only appropriate sentence,” said Lesele. “When you got to the house of the complainant and did not get what you were looking to find, you did not retract; instead you assaulted the complainant," Lesele said.
“The complainant pleaded for forgiveness, and cried, but nobody listened. He was thrown into the back of a police van like a bag of mielie-meal,” said Lesele. “The accused did not show any remorse for their despicable actions. Instead, they told the court a pack of lies," he said.
"Police are required to act professionally all the time, and not abuse their authority.” Defence attorney, Marius Wolmarans, said he wished to apply for leave to appeal the sentence, but at the time of going to print the decision whether to grant or refuse the application had still not been taken.
