Revered media icon Pabi Moloi allegedly engineered the arrest of her ex-husband Ruan Adams, visited him at the police holding cell where he was detained, shot pictures of him and warned she would show him who she really was.
Adams was later thrown into a squalid and stinking police holding cell alongside dangerous criminals and released later without being prosecuted.
The chilling details, which expose how influential figures abuse their proximity to power, were revealed by Adams in another lawsuit he has filed against Moloi and Minister of Police Bheki Cele in the Johannesburg regional court last month.
Adams is demanding R400 000 from Moloi and Cele for wrongful arrest .
The R400 000 comes shortly after Adams filed a R1-million lawsuit against Moloi and Cele at the Pretoria high court.
This after the police arrested him following Moloi’s allegedly fabricated charges against him that he had violated a protection order she had obtained against him.
In the magistrate court suit, whose papers we have seen, Adams said he went to the Norwood police station on or about March 6, 2022 to ask for court assistance on matters related to their child.
He said upon his arrival at the station at around 1pm, he was informed he should come back in the evening around 6pm.
When he returned to the cop shop the following day, he was informed there was a warrant of arrest against him issued at the instigation of Moloi – and this dates back to 2017.
He said at the police station he was harassed, humiliated, pushed around and threatened he would be taken to Kgosi Mampuru Prison in Pretoria.
A police captain, said Adams, whom he did not know from a bar soap, rescued him, informing him he should leave and return the following day.
He said on the following day, on March 7 last year, he returned to the station only to be told he was under arrest.
Adams said he went back to the station the following day, where a certain officer known as Gumede, arrived, and introduced himself and informed him he was under arrest.
When he requested the officer to produce the warrant for his arrest, Gumede failed to do so.
“Mr Gumede carried (sic) the plaintiff by his trousers, pushed him towards the wall in [an] attempt to handcuff him, humiliated him and harassed him, and another captain said he should not be handcuffed,” read the papers.
Adams said his fingerprints were taken, and afterwards Gumede took him to the police cells and detained him from 8am until midday.
While in the police cell, he said, Moloi arrived with Gumede and took photos of him and told him she would show him who she was.
After the incident on the same day, Adams said he was taken to police holding cells in Johannesburg, where he was detained in a bad smelling holding cell with “other perpetrators who committed serious crimes”.
“After an hour-and-half, Mr Gumede came and asked the plaintiff to follow him, wherein (sic) he was released and was told to leave and go home.
“Since that day, the plaintiff has never been contacted by any police official to appear before any court, and the matter has just ended just like that,” read the papers.
He said Moloi, whom he paid lobola for but broke up with her about three years ago, violated his constitutional right when she opened an unfounded case against him.
He also said the police effected an arrest without investigating the facts of the complaint lodged by Moloi.
Adams said Moloi’s actions amounted to malicious proceedings against him and were made mala fide, wrongful, unlawfully and were intended to prosecute and cause him to be detained without any reason.
As a result of his arrest, he said, he suffered deprivation of physical liberty, public humiliation, emotional, physical, psychological stress, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety, and will continue to suffer from such conditions for the rest of his life.
He also said during the time of his arrest, detainment or incarceration, he was harassed, humiliated and threatened by the members of South African Police Service.
“As a result of the defendants’ wrongful conduct and the sequelae of plaintiff injuries/damages caused by the setting of the law in motion by the first defendant, leading to the unlawful arrest, detention, and further detention of the plaintiff by the second defendant, and further the contumelia, infringements of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights, plaintiff suffered damages in the total sum of R400 000,” read the papers.
Adams’ lawyer, Lutendo Siphuma of SL Attorneys, declined to comment, saying the matter was sub judice.
