Description

Sakkie van der Mescht dumped in Rustenburg cell, threatened with gang-rape – forced to sign fake 'confession'

23/07/2008 Linda de Beer, Beeld - Rustenburg - A hunting trip turned into a nightmare for a former police officer when he was kept in a crowded cell for a weekend for trumped up 'crimen injuria' charges, along with people who assaulted him and wanted to rape him.These cellmates also ejaculated into his drinking water. Due to this hell he had to endure in the police cell, and after he was threatened with another seven days just like it, he pleaded guilty on June 30 in Madikwe Magistrate's Court to a charge of crimen injuria. His lawyer is appealing against this verdict because it was extracted under extreme duress.
Until March, Van der Mescht had been the police's appointed firearm official in Rustenburg. In 2008, he was working as a security manager for a hotel group to keep his family fed… On June 27 2008, the 37-year-old Afrikaner cop was arrested, stripped naked and assaulted repeatedly in the cells by inmates. He also was stabbed in the head with a knife and another sharp object. His cellmates also tried to rape him, but he fought with all his might to prevent this. A knife was held to his genitals while the men threatened to cut them off. After this, he had to sit on the cold cell floor for a long time before his clothes were given back to him, said Van der Mescht on Monday.
Van der Mescht, a father of two, did not eat or drink anything for the whole weekend: his cellmates apparently ejaculated into the water that was offered to him. He said the police visited the cell only once every morning and once every evening. Since his experience at the end of June, nightmares have been preventing Van der Mescht from sleeping. His lawyer, Carl Arnold, said they were waiting on the test results for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections because of the dirty knife that was used on Van der Mescht.On June 27 2008, Van der Mescht was part of a group who went hunting in the Madikwe Trust area. He was at their camp when two fellow hunters in a bakkie were stopped by police.They were unable to show the licence of another hunter's firearm that was in the car. After an assurance that someone would go to show them the licence, the police left without taking further action. Arnold said Van der Mescht -- until March the Rustenburg police's former firearm-license officer -- and another man drove after the police with the other hunter's firearm licence and identity document, but they repeatedly ignored him when he tried to show the documents to them. Van der Mescht and the driver of the bakkie he was in, then stopped at a place where a few police vehicles were standing next to the road. Some of the police officers apparently spotted him and stormed at Van der Mescht. The door of the bakkie was yanked open and he was jerked out by the arm. Van der Mescht said he told them he did not appreciate their actions.At that, he was thrown into the back of a police van. They apparently drove around with him for more than an hour before he was taken to Madikwe police station. He said: "I was arrested for crimen injuria and intimidation." Van der Mescht's wife was rudely chased from the police station when she wanted to see her husband on the Saturday, she told the news-media. She apparently also was threatened with arrest. On June 30, Van der Mescht was forced to plead guilty in Madikwe Magistrate's Court under extreme duress to a charge of crimen injuria, after he was threatened 'with another seven days in the cells.'North West police's Captain Aafje Botma claimed that 'Van der Mescht threatened and swore at the police officer when they were driving next to each other' and that the former police officer 'was taken to a hospital for treatment'.She also denied that his wife had been kept from visiting him -- and said police 'had visited the cells every hour...' However, Botma was at a loss to answer a question about how a sharp object got into the prisoners' cell. http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2362959,00.html