Ilse de Lange
8.8.2013 05.00 am
The minister of police will have to cough-up for
the damages sustained by a Nelspruit man when he was arrested for no reason,
shot with rubber bullets, assaulted and belittled as a “white bastard”
In terms of a settlement agreement in the North
Gauteng High Court the minister of police accepted full liability for the
damages sustained by Jan Lodewyk Coetzee, 39.
Coetzee is claiming over R870 000 for his ordeal at
the hands of the police in February 2011, but the amount that must be paid will
only be determined later.
Coetzee said in a statement the incident started
when a fellow employee at a towing service parked one of the tow-trucks in
front of his house without permission.
After repeatedly asking colleagues to remove the
tow-truck, Coetzee and his father-in-law dragged the truck into the garage and
locked it up.
When his colleague later arrived to fetch the
truck, Coetzee’s father-in-law jokingly said he first had to pay R4 000 for
storage, resulting in a huge argument.
Coetzee said he was busy with a birthday braai and
wasn’t part of the discussion.
Later that night his boss and colleague arrived
with about 12 heavily armed policemen dressed in combat clothing and
bulletproof vests.
When the police wanted to force the garage open
Coetzee asked if they had a warrant, where upon pepper spray was sprayed into
his eyes.
His boss told him he was going to get hurt that
night. Two policemen then opened fire on him with shotguns.
They kept on firing at him even when he turned
around. They then sprayed pepper spray into his face again before throwing him
into the police van, despite the fact that he was bleeding profusely.
At the police station he was hit and kicked by
policemen who kept on shouting that he was a “white bastard”.
He was later taken to hospital, where he was
handcuffed to his bed and guarded by nine policemen for four days, but no
charges were ever laid against him.
Coetzee said he had been shot nine times. Some of
the wounds never healed, he couldn’t straighten his left leg and he suffered
from chronic headaches.
He battled to sleep, was nervous the whole time and
became so aggressive after the incident that his wife insisted he needed
counselling.
