Eight South African policemen guilty of murdering taxi driver
|
Version 0 of 1. Eight South African police officers have been found guilty of murdering a Mozambican man who died after being dragged behind a moving police van two years ago. Mido Macia, 27, a taxi driver, died in police custody in February 2013 following his arrest for parking his car on the wrong side of the road. Amateur video footage (warning: contains images that some may find distressing) published by the South African newspaper the Daily Sun showed Macia being manhandled, handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged hundreds of metres in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg. Just over two hours later he was found dead in a police cell in a pool of blood. In Pretoria’s high court on Tuesday, Judge Bert Bam convicted all eight men captured on the video of murder, dismissing their defence that Macia violently resisted arrest and had assaulted an officer. The driver of the police van claimed he drove away to escape an angry crowd that had gathered and did not know Macia was being dragged behind. Describing the defence as “fraught with discrepancies and improbabilities”, the judge agreed with the state’s case that the police were “trying to teach the deceased a lesson” for swearing at the arresting officer. Macia was being unlawfully arrested and detained for a minor traffic violation, said Bam, and was therefore entitled to resist arrest. He was then further assaulted in the police cells, the judge said, citing a postmortem report that found extensive head injuries, lacerations and bruising. Bam said: “The soft tissue injuries were extensive; the blunt force injuries were severe. In considering all the evidence, it is clear the deceased was indeed assaulted in the police cell. Accused one to eight are convicted of murder.” A ninth accused was previously acquitted. South Africa’s police are frequently embroiled in allegations of brutality but successful convictions are rare. The eight are due to be sentenced on 22 September and could face a minimum of 15 years in prison. |