Priest alleges torture over 30 hours

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 10

Priest alleges torture over 30 hours

NZPA-Reuter Pretoria A South African Catholic priest detained under emergency rule has accused the police of torture. He said he was forced to stand blindfolded, handcuffed, and half-naked during a 30hour interrogation session. The Rev. Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, the black general secretary of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, was detained on June 12, the day the emergency was imposed. In an affidavit filed in

the Supreme Court at Pretoria where the conference seeks an order restraining the police from “ftirther assaulting or torturing” Father Mkhatshwa, he gave his account of an interrogation session last week. The Law and Order Minister, Mr Louis le Grange, said in papers before the court that he would ensure the police refrained from any assaults on the clergyman. Father Mkhatshwa said two white men had taken him from his cell at a Pretoria police station on

Wednesday. They had blindfolded and handcuffed him before driving him to an unkribwn destination. On arrival his track suit bottom and underpants had been pulled down and his vest adjusted to expose his genitals and buttocks. He was then bombarded with "hostile rhetorical questions” by five interrogators working in shifts. They had asked him why he took part in politics, why he promoted the campaign to free the jailed nationalist leader, Nelson Mandela, and why

he did not condemn sanctions against South Africa. When he had not answered with a yes or no he was “assisted” to reply correctly. Father Mkhatshwa’s affidavit alleged that he was left standing on the same spot, blindfolded and handcuffed, for at least 30 hours. His genitals and buttocks were left exposed for at least 29 hours and a watery substance was smeared on his legs and thighs, which with the cold air entering the room had caused him much

discomfort. He had drunk nothing and was fed three bites of a sausage pushed into his mouth by one of his interrogators. Twice during the interrogation shots had been fired from behind and just above the back of his head. “A creepy creature or instrument was fed into my backside. From there it would move up and down my legs, thighs, and invariably ended up biting my genitals. When I cringed with pain they would laugh. “At some stage I lost all

sense of time, distance, orientation or awareness. My whole being went numb. Through their ‘assistance’ I was able to continue.” When his questioners had reached their conclusions they read them to Father Mkhatshwa for a “yes” vote. If he denied or qualified anything, shouts, insults and threats had been hurled at him. As he was taken back to his cell after the session he had limped badly because the soles of his feet were painful and his feet swollen.