Police accused of assaulting man over shack

PAULINA NDALIKOKULEA 31-YEAR-OLD man has accused Windhoek City Police officers of assaulting him over a shack he erected illegally in Otjomuise on Thursday.

Elifas Angombe said the officers had ordered him not to erect the shack on Wednesday afternoon, but he ignored them because he had nowhere else to stay.

Later in the evening, Angombe said, the officers came to his shack in the Agste Laan informal settlement at around 20h00 while he was making tea.

The officers arrested and took him to the Otjomuise Police Station, where he was detained for the night. No charges were laid against him.

The police also destroyed his shack after they had arrested him. According to Angombe, some officers picked him up from Otjomuise yesterday morning, and took him to the Khomasdal satellite Police Station, where two officers beat him for allegedly accusing them of carrying out illegal demolitions.

“I did not say much. I only asked them why they had only destroyed my shack when all the shacks in the area were also illegal. I called it corruption. That is when they slapped, punched and kicked me,” Angombe explained.

He claimed that he was hit on the face, ribs and arm. A doctor at the Khomasdal Clinic confirmed attending to him, and wrote a report on his injuries.

Angombe showed his swollen stomach and bruised arm, which he claimed was caused by the assault and tightened handcuffs.

He was issued with two tickets to pay fines totalling N$3 000 for disobeying police officers’ instructions (N$2 000) and illegally erecting a shack on municipal land (N$1 000). He is supposed to pay the fines by 28 March 2019. Angombe sadly also lost his job as a driver at African Personnel Services last month.

“They took my zinc sheets. They must pay me for my materials, or give them back because I don’t have a job any more. I even applied for an erf back in 2013, but I never got it,” he stated.

Angombe said he is worried about the fate of his brother, who is a student at Triumphant College.

“I feel bad, especially for my brother. I set up the structure for him to have a place to stay, now where will we go?” he asked. His cousin, Ndiimwenena Neshila, said it was unfair that only the victim’s shack was destroyed.

“They claimed that they demolished it because Angombe erected it in a part of a neighbour’s plot.

But which plot, if they are all here illegally? This is corruption,” Neshila charged.

She said she heard bulldozers destroying the shack at about 04h00 yesterday.

City Police spokesperson Cillie Kapolo said under no circumstances does the City Police demolish people’s shacks. She said the officers handcuffed Angombe because he refused to provide his identity card when he was found erecting a shack, and that he had run away when he saw the police approaching earlier during the day.

Angombe denied running away, or that he had refused to give the police his identity document.