Torture suspect jeered in court

Caprivi separatist suspects reacted with jeers on Monday when a policeman accused of having tortured many of their colleagues walked into the court room at Grootfontein, the ‘Namibian’ reported. The jeers erupted as Sergeant Patrick Liswani - one of the officers accused of subjecting the suspects to vicious assaults - entered the court where 132 men heard their case had been postponed again.

Liswani has been named as a torturer by some of the suspects who were sjambokked and beaten after being detained in the wake of the separatist attack on the main Caprivi town of Katima Mulilo in August 1999. The alleged torture has now become the subject of more than 130 pending civil suits against the government. Damages running into millions of dollars are being claimed by people allegedly assaulted while in custody after the secessionist attacks, the report said. Liswani and several others in the security forces are now the subject of a police investigation.

The government’s case against the 132 secessionist suspects charged with high treason, was postponed to 21 May. Deputy Prosecutor-General Lourens Campher informed Magistrate Harris Salionga that the police investigation was “basically finished” and that documentation on the matter would be handed to the Office of the Prosecutor-General this week.