Mr Petros Tlou says he sustained a break to his left leg in the assault on him.<\/p>\n
The assault was allegedly transgressed in an office at the local detective branch, by a well known policeman, who promised to have a case of assault against Mr Tlou disappear.<\/p>\n
But when Mt Tlou refused to pay, he was suddenly arrested and beaten to the extent that he cannot perform his duties as builder for the contractor hired by Olifants River Lodge, where the policeman picked him up for questioning on the day of the alleged assault.<\/p>\n
He said that after some explaining, the detective left his office with him and asked for money to relieve a babelas (hangover).<\/p>\n
“I gave him R30 with which he bought beer, and he told me that the assault charge against me was a thing of the past,” Mr Tlou says.<\/p>\n
But, just a few days later, he again received a call from the same policeman, asking for more money.<\/p>\n
When he refused, he says the policeman arrived at Olifants River Lodge, cuffed him, and took him to the detective branch in Middelburg where he was suffocated with a bag over his head, and beaten about the upper and lower body with a led filled baton.<\/p>\n
He submitted a J88 form, filled by a doctor to indicate the extent of the injuries sustained in the assault, to the Middelburg police on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
W\/o Lize de Witt confirmed a case of assault against the officer, and added that the case of assault on which Mr Tlou was picked up, is still under investigation.<\/p>\n
“This case should never have been opened or investigated, because I simply intervened in a robbery where a Mhluzi woman was threatened with a knife,” Mr Tlou explains.<\/p>\n
He admitted to hitting the robber who, for some inexplicable reason, opened a charge of assault against him, fueling Mr Tlou’s belief that the policeman, may have questionable ties with known criminals.<\/p>\n
“I explained that to the detective that he was investigating the wrong man,” Mr Tlou says.<\/p>\n
He says he’s scared and confused about what to do, since the detective knows where he works and lives.Though the case is being investigated by Middelburg detectives, Mr Tlou believes nothing will come of it “because he is one of them”.<\/p>\n
W\/o De Witt said that Mr Tlou was free to consult with the station commander, brigadier Jansen Ngoveni, in person to discuss his fears, and reservations about the investigation.<\/p>\n
“I can assure Mr Tlou, the case is receiving our unbiased attention,” w\/o De Witt assured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Middelburg SAPS is investigating a case of assault against a Mhluzi detective accused of attacking a suspect who, refused to pay bribes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":30345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Gerhard Rheeder","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}