Wandile Dludlu, the president of the Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) is setting out to prove that he was held and tortured by police after being arrested at a border protest earlier this month (September 2009).
He says after police released him he got a doctor’s report detailing his external and internal injuries.
Dludlu said he was tortured by four police officers for almost two hours on allegations that he had information about guns and explosives which were allegedly smuggled into the country to ‘assassinate’ top politicians.
Dludu took reporters from Swaziland’s Times Sunday to the place in an isolated forest at Mhlam-banyatsi where the torture took place.
The Times Sunday reports today (13 September 2009) that the bush he was taken to was about three kilometres from a public road. Dludlu said police placed a blanket on the ground and made him lie on it when torturing him.
Dludlu said once he was released he went to Mbabane Government Hospital but doctors there did not do any checkups on him. Later he went to a private doctor for an X-ray and the doctor’s report confirmed that he suffered physical and internal injuries.
According to a report in the Swazi News, police arrested and tortured Dludlu because they believed he knew where guns, explosives and ‘war missiles’ were being stored and these were to be used ‘in an operation to assassinate the country’s influential politicians and other high ranking members of royalty’.
Police deny Dludlu’s account of torture.
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