PORT ELIZABETH - ST ALBANS PRISONERS LOSE APPEAL IN INMATES TORTURE CASE

An application for leave to appeal a ruling involving claims of torture and violence made by inmates at an Eastern Cape prison, was dismissed with costs by the Port Elizabeth High court on Tuesday.

In August last year, Judge Dyalan Chetty dismissed the case and claims by Xolani Siko and Simphiwe Mbena, the first of 231 potential St Albans prison plaintiffs.

In his judgement Chetty criticised both Mbena and Siko. Chetty accused Siko of “disingenuousness which permeates his testimony” and dismissed his evidence as “the product of a fertile imagination”.

Subsequently during October last year, human rights lawyer Egon Oswald, who had instituted a multi-million rand claim for damages on behalf of the prisoners, lodged an application for leave to appeal the decision.

The prisoners from St Albans just outside Port Elizabeth were attempting to sue the Minister of Correctional Services for damages, claiming that they had been tortured during a mass assault after a warder was killed in 2005.

The inmates claim they were tortured for several days following the murder of warder Babini Nqakula.

Among the weapons allegedly used to torture the inmates in the prison’s maximum security section were shock shields.

The prisoners claimed they were drenched in water before the warders hit them with the shock shields, amplifying the effect.

Medical records of many of the prisoners indicated a series of injuries, including lacerations and linear bruises to the back.

Convicted killer and self-confessed gangster Mbena, who attacked and stabbed Nqakula, previously told the court that parts of the record in his criminal trial were a lie and that his version had been incorrectly recorded by court officials.

During the trial the court further heard that Siko had become a depressed and highly traumatised as a result of the alleged torture incident during 2005.

An occupational therapist, Letitia Strauss, said that Siko’s quality of life had been negatively impacted in that he experienced severe physical difficulty, particularly in his hands.

According to court documents, Advocates Hilton Epstein and Razia Laher for the Minister of Correctional Services, cited that an appeal would not have a reasonable prospect of success.

According to their submissions, both Mbena and Siko were contradicted by proven facts and “guilty of self-contradiction”.

“There were conscious falsehoods and they deliberately misstated certain facts. There were inherent improbabilities in their version, there were discrepancies and there were no honest mistakes.”

They submitted that the stories of both Mbena and Siko were not true in their essential form and further highlighted that the court had made a deliberate and conclusive findings which rejected evidence of the applicants.

African News Agency