Innocent man wins case

THE BRUTAL torture by a police officer to force an innocent man to confess to a gruesome killing resulted in his co-accused being falsely implicated, the Supreme Court of Appeal has said.

This was the latest episode in the quest for justice by Eugen Mahlangu and the family of the now late Phanie Johannes Mtsweni, which has made a full circle in the courts.

They each claimed R2 700 000 in general damages and R85 000 for loss of income in the North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.

They had served an eight months stint in jail before the real killers were caught and sentenced.

That court, however, only awarded damages for the period from the date of arrest until their appearance, with the judge reasoning that they could have applied for bail at that stage.

Mahlangu was awarded R90 000 and Mtsweni R50 000 for the time they were held in custody, from May 2005 until the end of February 2006.

The matter went on appeal before a full court of three judges which confirmed the first order.

The Supreme Court of Appeal subsequently also ruled that they could not claim compensation for the entire time they had spent in jail.

But the Constitutional Court has now had the final word and ordered that both men were entitled to damages for the eight months and 10 days they had spent time in jail after their unlawful arrest and detention.

The judges of the apex court commented that liberty was one of the cornerstones of the Constitution. They also reasoned that the Police Ministry should be held liable for the conduct of the officers.

It emerged an officer had remained tight-lipped for months about him having beaten Mahlangu into a false confession, which led to Mtsweni’s arrest.

The tragic events were sparked in May 2005 when a family of four – a father, a mother and their two children – were brutally murdered in Middelburg.

One of the children was a little girl who was also savagely raped. The third child, a 3-year-old girl, survived the ordeal.

While witnesses who had discovered the bodies could not implicate anyone, one of the investigators, only identified as Lieutenant Mthombeni, decided to go to Mahlangu’s home nearby and arrest him.

He denied any knowledge of the crimes.

In order to force him to admit that he had committed the crimes, they placed his legs in irons, handcuffed his hands behind his back and repeatedly suffocated him by placing a rubber tube or a plastic bag over his head.

This lasted for several hours and Mahlangu ultimately succumbed and confessed to crimes he had not committed.

When asked how he killed the deceased persons, he initially said that he had shot them with a firearm.