St Albans prison: Enter the era of SA’s torture prosecutions?
Carolyn Raphaely
02 Apr 2014 01:08
(South Africa)
South Africa
A recent prison-wide orgy of
mass-beatings, electric-shock, torture and assaults, involving 200 inmates of
Port Elizabeth’s St Albans prison, could lead to the first prosecutions in
terms of SA’s new torture legislation. By CAROLYN RAPHAELY.
The assaults and torture, which
allegedly occurred during a midnight search for contraband last month (2
March), included inmates being forced to lie naked on the ground in a long
human chain with their noses in the anus of the inmate in front of them.
This might mean that Department
of Correctional Services (DCS) Eastern Cape Regional Commissioner Nkosinathi
Breakfast, Area Commissioner Mandla Jam and about 50 members of DCS’ Emergency
Security Team (EST) involved in the search may be the first State officials to
be charged with torture in the new SA. Prior to the promulgation of The
Prevention and Combating of Torture of Persons Act in July last year, torture
was not a crime in SA.
“This is an opportunity to test
the new torture legislation and international criminal law applicable to
torture,” said Port Elizabeth human rights lawyer Egon Oswald, who is
representing more than 100 affected St Albans inmates in a criminal case, as well
as a civil claim for torture -related damages. Breakfast told the WJP that he
and Jam were both present in the prison during the “routine search operation.”
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