Deputy commissioner Gottfried Kuanda says the police are investigating a case of a mentally challenged man wrongly held in the Lüderitz police holding cells for six months.
He says cell records indicate that Tangi Shiimi (29) appeared in court, but currently “the matter is still under investigation”.
Shiimi was allegedly wrongly arrested and detained by police officers from 4 June to 22 December 2022.
A sworn statement by Shiimi’s mother, Sophia Shikongo, states that her son was detained for alleged theft without evidence.
“Shiimi was repeatedly called in court and depicted as being at large,” says Shikongo.
She has questioned how police officers and the court at the town did not know her son was in custody during that period.
Shikongo further claims her son, upon his release in December 2022, returned home “with a swollen right hand in bandages”.
She says Shiimi told her he had been “hurt in custody and that the police officers released him and told him to go back home”.
“No police officer of the higher ranks ever informed me about the unfair treatment regarding my mentally challenged son,” she says.
Shikongo says Shiimi is on treatment for a mental condition but none of the police officers came to collect his health passport or his medication.
“I don’t know if they managed to ever [take] him to the hospital for a medication replacement,” she says.
Hospital records obtained by The Namibian confirm that Shiimi received treatment for a swollen hand on 12 December 2022.
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