Kidnapped man freed as Hawks swoop on ‘bombers’

Tanzanian held in a hole in the ground

A Tanzanian man‚ shackled and thrown into a dark underground pit‚ was saved by chance when a team of Hawks detectives on the trail of those behind a spate of Durban bombings pulled him from the hole.

The man survived on little more than a banana a day for three weeks after he was abducted and bundled into a car by a gang of armed men from his Umbilo business premises adjacent to his home.

It is understood that when the Hawks raided a Reservoir Hills home at the weekend‚ the emaciated and wounded man was found bound in a “dungeon”.

The man’s friend‚ Mohamed Ali‚ who has visited him in a Durban hospital‚ said the abductors were after money.

“He told me that, on the night, he was about to get inside his house when he was surrounded by a group of men who pretended to be policemen and were all wearing balaclavas and gloves. They caught him and put him in a car‚” Ali said.

“They tied his legs together and put him in an underground pit. They demanded that he give them money. They wanted his family in Tanzania to pay them.

“They only gave him a single banana per day while they just kept beating him to get a ransom for him.”

Ali added that the man’s legs were injured from his shackles.

Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the victim had been discovered on Friday.

“[Hawks] members rescued a malnourished victim who was chained in a dungeon in one of the houses,” Mulaudzi said‚ adding that the victim was under police guard in hospital.

Beyond saving the man‚ the Hawks team arrested 19 people they believe are linked to the bloody knife-attack at the Imam Hussain Mosque in Verulam in May and the planting of a string of incendiary devices at retail outlets in the months that followed.

The group appeared in camera at the Verulam magistrate’s court on Tuesday amid police presence.

Members of the gang face a collective 14 charges‚ including murder‚ attempted murder as well as terror-related charges.

‘ ‘ They demanded money and wanted his family to pay