A murder suspect in
Swaziland, who has been in jail for the past nine years without being tried,
has filed an urgent application at the High Court to be released.
He had been granted bail in
2009 but could not afford to pay it.
Fana Shongwe from Ndlalambi
in the Hhohho region was arrested in September 2009 and charged with murder and
arson. He is currently kept at the Sidvwashini Correctional facility.
His case has similarities
to that of Sikhumbuzo Mdluli, of Ngwazini in the Manzini region
who was arrested and charged with murder in March 2008 and is also reportedly at
Sidvwashini awaiting trial.
The Swazi Observer reported on Wednesday (25 April 2018) that Shongwe wanted
the High Court to order his release. It reported that in 2009 he was granted
bail by the High Court fixed at E50,000 (US$4,070) and was ordered to pay
E15,000 cash with the rest being in form of a surety.
It quoted him saying, ‘I
was not able to pay the bail as I could not afford and as such I have been in
custody from the date of arrest to the date of the present application.’
His lawyer submitted that Shongwe’s
incarceration without trial violated the Swaziland Constitution.
Shongwe’s case is similar to that of Sikhumbuzo
Mdluli, of Ngwazini in the Manzini region. It
was reported in January 2018 that he had been arrested and charged with
murder in March 2008 but had not been sent for trial. He has asked the High
Court of Swaziland to intervene.
The pair are not the only people jailed for lengthy
periods in Swaziland awaiting trial. In December 2017 Swaziland’s Human
Rights Commission reported at least 133 people had been
detained in Swaziland jails without trial for more than a year, Executive
Secretary of the Human Rights Commission Linda Nxumalo told the Sunday Observer at the time, ‘One of the key cases that the Commission has
worked on [in 2017] was one dealing with the issue of access to justice
especially for 133 inmates that have been detained for longer than 12 months
without trial or sentencing at our already overcrowded correctional
facilities.’
A report
just published by the US State Department into human rights
issues in Swaziland for 2017 stated, ‘Lengthy
pretrial detention was common. Judicial inefficiency and staff shortages
contributed to the problem, as did the police practice of prolonging detention
to collect evidence and prevent detainees from influencing witnesses if
released. There were instances in which the length of detention equalled or
exceeded the sentence for the alleged crime.’
See also
133
JAILED WITHOUT TRIAL FOR A YEAR
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