By James Hall
MBABANE, Oct 17 2001 (IPS)

In Swaziland, long-standing denials by the police of brutality and other abuses of criminal suspects have taken a credibility dent with the arrest of a police officer on the charge of raping a woman jail inmate.

A lawsuit mounted by her husband will presumably expose some police dirty laundry in open court, which human rights and legal observers hope will lead to needed reforms.

“The ‘anything goes’ attitude of Swaziland police officers toward criminal suspects in recent years has taken two forms: alleged torture of detained people to induce confessions, and the sexual abuse of women inmates,” says Jerry Ndwandwe of the Human Rights Association of Swaziland (HUMARAS).

Although the Royal Swaziland Police Force has always denied allegations of police brutality, tens of thousands of dollars annually are paid in out-of court settlements to former jail inmates who upon release sue the department for abuse.

After conducting its own interviews of former jail inmates who claim to have been subjected to police torture, HUMARAS believes their allegations, and so does Amnesty International.

The U.S. State Department in its annual report on human rights abuses has criticised Swaziland for incidents of police brutality on suspects in custody.

But a number of Swazis alarmed by a rise in crime sympathise with the police, who are faced with budgetary restrictions that inhibit detective work. Sometimes, because of a lack of basics like motor transport, detectives are unable to get to a crime scene.

“Some police feel the need to get tough on suspects in order to induce confessions, which is the only way they feel they can get what they need to obtain a conviction in court,” says a source within the Royal Swaziland Police Force.

He insists that torture is not department policy and that it is rare.

The Times of Swaziland, and independent newspaper free of government control, refers to the beating of suspects in order to obtain confessions “detective work of another kind”.

Now comes the arrest of a police officer in the southern Shiselweni Region on a charge of rape. At his court hearing, details emerged of how the officer overpowered a 33 year-old woman under arrest for assisting the escape of a suspected house burglar.

Normally, when a woman inmate accuses a police officer of rape, no charge is made due to lack of evidence. It comes down to her word against his, and the policeman denies the allegation.

This time, a resident of the area, who was passing through the station, played a major role in the arrest of the officer. He opened an office door when he heard suspicious noises, found the police officer rapping the woman, and created an open-and-shut case for the plaintiff.

Details of the incident that do not come out at the policeman’s trial may emerge from a civil-action lawsuit filed by the victim’s husband. His wife is alarmed that her alleged rapist did not wear a condom, a life-threatening omission in a nation where up to a third of the population is infected with HIV, according to one UN study.

The woman’s alleged rapist has not been convicted, and until his trial is over and he is convicted, his identity cannot be revealed, according to Swazi law.

In future, technology may be required to determine rape cases. “Technology will help a lot with rape cases,” says rape counsellor Anne Dlamini. “DNA testing in particular will be helpful, but that is still years away for a small country like Swaziland.”

Treaty agreements between countries of the African subcontinent may allow the use of each other’s forensic facilities to help detective work, but will not alleviate police abuses that appear motivated by a lack of respect toward criminal suspects.

“There is a tendency to think of someone under arrest as guilty, rather than innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” says an attorney with Lawyers for Human Rights (Swaziland). “That is why we oppose the Non-Bailable Law that keeps people who are arrested for a broad list of crimes in jail until their trials.”

The culture of presuming premature guilt, this attorney says, leads to the dispensing of premature punishment unilaterally by police officers.

Swaziland has no political prisoners other than Mario Masuku, the president of the banned political party, the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), who allegedly flaunted his bail conditions last week in order to be arrested.

It follows that the torture of political prisoners is not a human rights issue, though pro-democracy groups and labour union leaders complain of police brutality during demonstrations and marches, which are illegal in Swaziland and inevitably invite a harsh police response when they are staged.

The garden-variety criminal is at greatest risk. But women inmates in particular are speaking up. The civil suit filed by the husband of the alleged rape victim – he claims her trauma ruined their marriage -will further bring abuses out in the open.

Some abuse counsellors are encouraged that the police officer has been arrested, which they see as evidence that the department recognises a problem with the treatment of criminal suspects, and seeks a remedy.

As much as the Lawyers for Human Rights (Swaziland) wishes to concur, rape is a non-bailable offence, and the policeman’s indefinite jailing until his trial presents a dilemma.

The organisation considers state-mandated automatic denial of bail to criminal suspects charged with certain crimes as an infringement on judicial independence.

The prestigious Swaziland Law Society agrees. “What we may ultimately need are social case workers at police stations, and an independent observer on hand during police interrogations,” suggests Ndwandwe of HUMARAS. “Even a person charged with murder is entitled to safety and respect as he awaits his day in court.”

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