Study lays bare police’s brutal tactics

MASERU – A study released this week says the police brutality is a direct result of a “delinquent culture within the LMPS fraternity created by poor supervision and outright lack of accountability”.

The brutal assessment is contained in a report, Lesotho Police Brutality Study Report 2021 – 2022, conducted by a local researcher Lesiamo Molapo on behalf of the United Textile Employees (Unite).

The study was funded by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA).

“Internal police culture plays a pivotal role in creating impunity, lack of accountability and that internal power struggles are at the centre of erosion of values and poor service to the public,” says the report.

Although training is important to capacitate the police, “in Lesotho’s case, however, police brutality is not a product of curriculum or poor training, but it is a product of a delinquent culture within the LMPS (Lesotho Mounted Police Service) fraternity created by poor supervision and outright lack of accountability”.

A classic example of police brutality is a case of one man (name withheld) who was tortured to confess that he had stolen a yellow plant machine, the study found.

When he could not say what the police wanted to hear, they struck him repeatedly with a knobkerrie in the ribs until one rib cracked.

The handcuffs on his arms were tightened and twisted with a knobkerrie so much that they sunk and cut deeper into his wrists to the extent that his wrists immediately began to swell and blood trickled out.

He was stripped naked, repeatedly kicked in the groin, struck with a lebetlela (fighting stick), dunked in cold water, then a vehicle tyre tube was pulled over his head to induce asphyxiation.

After what he described as an interlude of sure death, he thought “the Devil was holier than the Lesotho police officers”.

The police officers torturing him left him slightly unconscious, lying in his excrete, wet with his urine, still handcuffed and barely breathing.

At the change of police shift, after three hours of torture and after being apparently forgotten by his torturers, the relief officer found him in a despicable inhumane state.

The study found that the use of a tyre tube to induce asphyxiation was an instrument of choice by the police.

The most excruciating pain was through the use of koto.

A suspect is struck with koto on the last bone of the vertebrae, which numbs the whole waist with such excruciating pain and a suspect literally defecates.

It says between 2015 and 2017 some incidents of police brutality, extra judiciary killings, killing of citizens and cover ups emerged.

It says some survivors carried physical marks, some carried psychological trauma while some had suicidal thoughts.

“Collected info indicates that known police officers who killed citizens are deliberately transferred or rotated around the country, especially, they are sent to work in the mountain posts or far from the station of incident,” the study found.

One survivor of police torture at Ha-Mokhalinyane police station cited “being repeatedly struck with a fighting stick, handcuffs twisted with a knobkerrie, strangled, kicked in the groin”.

He was tortured as he was expected to answer with a confession of guilt, failing which, more punishment followed, which could have resulted in death.

The study found that he confessed by implicating someone, “including the same police officers who were torturing him”.

They threatened him with death if he continued to talk “s*it”, but that unwanted implication freed him.

However, he was released with “broken ribs, a broken leg and a broken arm” and with a fear of being hunted down to be killed if ever he reported his case to the powers that be.

The study says the police use knobkerries because it leaves no visible marks on a human body, but the spot it hits shows a roundish dent with no tear or damaged skin.

“Such a spot heals quickly,” it reads.

“However, the damage done underneath the skin can be debilitating or even fatal.”

A knobkerrie helps torturers to conceal injuries, in the case where a suspect has to see a doctor, the study found.

It’s used to hit thighs and the last vertebrae.

Another torture tool is a car tyre tube because just like a plastic, when a suspect attempts to breath, every hole in the face is blocked.

A tube is normally moistened with water and is forcefully stretched over the face of the suspect, it easily blocks every opening in the face.

The suspect is forced to lie down with his stomach and the torturer sits astride him around the waist area, the tube is pulled over the face like a horse being harnessed.

Because it is elastic it can be stretched up to the ears.

The bowels loosen and the suspect soils themselves immediately.

A suspect talks voluntarily, they say.

“This is the best preferred method by torturers for stubborn suspects, or only just for the fun of it especially for suspects of high esteem so that stories may be told around of having soiled themselves,” it reads.

“It’s often the last but one of the brutal torture methods.”

Suspects’ eyes turn inside out, cuts breath, vomits, defecates, suspect sees death.

“This is one method that has claimed a number of victims, especially those who were said to be stubborn and refused to confess or to implicate somebody.”

Staff Reporter