A Reiger Park man has been awarded R600 000 in damages by the South Gauteng High Court after he was unlawfully arrested on the charges of murder two years ago.
Thabo Mokoena* was arrested on the 4th of March 2020 at his house by a certain sergeant (Sgt) Khoza.
Mokoena was suspected of having killed an unnamed 18-year-old man. The deceased was found in the street with a head wound by his uncle. He later succumbed to his injuries at Tambo Memorial Hospital.
Mokena was implicated by a single witness who later recanted her statement. The witness told the police that whilst attending a street party bash in Ramaphosa, she had witnessed the assault of the deceased by two males.
She, in a statement to Khoza said the two males had dragged the deceased out of the tent and in the direction where she was sitting. She said she recognised one of the attackers to be the Mokoena who she claimed was wielding a three-star knife, popularly known as Okapi.
Mokoena made his bail application on the 9th of March – an application which was postponed to the 19th of that month.
Khoza indicated to the court on the 19th that he did not oppose the Regional Magistrates’ Court granting Mokoena bail. However, the Public Prosecutor objected to the granting of bail and the magistrate dismissed Mokoena’s application for bail and postponed the matter for further investigation.
While Mokoena was languishing in jail, the witness who implicated him changed her tune and said she was lying and was forced to fabricate the whole version as set out in her first Statement in order to falsely implicate Mokoena.
Unlike in the first statement, she was now in the presence of her mother and provided Sgt Khoza with a certified copy of her birth certificate which proved that she was only 15 when she had initially told police she was 19 years old. The second statement is dated 5th of May.
Despite this, Mokoena was only released from prison on the 10th of June. The judge ruled that Mokoena’s rights were trampled, and lambasted shoddy police work exhibited by Khoza.
“In this regard, Sgt Khoza was roundly criticised for his failure to carry out these cursory investigations (as well as his investigations of the matter generally) by both the Public Prosecutor and his Station Commander. Eventually, when he did carry out these investigations, it transpired that no street party had in fact taken place on that particular evening. Had Sgt Khoza taken any of these simple steps following receipt of (the witnesses’) first Statement, it would have been abundantly clear to him (and if he had any doubt to his superiors) that the contents of the first Statement were false and, if not false, did not contain sufficient facts when weighed against the other facts, to provide Sgt Khoza with reasonable grounds to arrest the Plaintiff (Mokoena),” the judgement reads.
Mokena had claimed an amount of R5 million while the police argued that an amount of R350 000 would be a suitable amount to compensate Mokoena his damages. The judge found R600 000 to be a reasonable compensation.
*Not his real name
Follow @SundayWorldZA on Twitter and @sundayworldza on Instagram, or like our Facebook Page, Sunday World, by clicking here for the latest breaking news in South Africa. To Subscribe to Sunday World, click here.
