The treatment meted out to a woman arrested at King Shaka International Airport on vague suggestions that she may be involved in fraud, and her subsequent 10 nightmare days in custody amounted to horrific suffering.

This is according to the Supreme Court of Appeal in awarding her R580,000 in damages. Cynthia Khedama earlier won her case in the KwaZulu Natal High Court against the police. She was initially awarded R580,000 in damages, but on appeal before a full bench of the court the amount was reduced to R350,000.

Khedama appealed before the SCA against the reduced amount. She initially claimed R1 million in damages from the police. The SCA, in upholding the appeal, commented that in considering the treatment and conditions which prevailed in almost all places where she was detained, she rightfully must have thought that it would be better for her to rather die.

“The cruelty displayed by the police towards her leaves one with no room to imagine that the police thought that they were still dealing with a fellow human being. The treatment meted out to her was so harsh that one would perhaps be justified to think this was an effort to enable the appellant to be so frustrated as to rather take her life…It was even forgotten that she belonged to the human race,” the court remarked.

Khedama was arrested in December 2011 while she was on route to Turkey for a business visit, alongside her employer. Two police officers approached her, and she was led to a room at the airport where she was questioned.

She was asked where she was going to and whether she had any fraud matters pending. She was accused of being associated with a “kwerekwere” – a derogatory term for a foreign national – as her boyfriend was from Cameroon.

The officials demanded her suitcase to check whether she was carrying drugs. Although no incriminating items could be found on her, she was arrested. Khedama’s explanation to the police that her ID document had been stolen and that she did report to the SAPS that the perpetrators were using her document, fell on deaf ears.

This was the start of her nightmare ordeal, as her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was taken to the police station. She was placed in a small cell, which was dirty with faeces and smelled terribly. She had no blanket with which to cover herself. She described how breakfast, bread and tea were thrown through a hole in the door.

Khedama testified that she was so distressed that she thought of taking her own life. A few days later she was told she was being transported to Cape Town. On the way, at Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, she was detained in a filthy police cell overnight in a leaking cell while it was raining. She spent the whole night crying.

In the nine days which had elapsed, she had not been able to change any of her clothing and had not once been given the opportunity to bathe. When they arrived in Cape Town on the 10th day, her fingerprints were taken to verify whether she was the person of interest being sought.

It turned out that the SAPS had the wrong person. Yet she was taken back to her cell and only managed to secure bail the next day. Nothing eventually became of the charges against her.

Everyone has the constitutional right not to be treated in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way, the SCA said in upholding her appeal.

Source link