A spokesperson for the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), Sontaga Seisa, stresses IPID will be “following the correct legal procedures in terms of executing the warrant of arrests”. Spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Phaladi Shuping, says the case has been postponed to 10 January 2020 for trial.

The seven police officers in question from Trompsburg and Edenburg - six men and one woman – are each facing an assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm charge. They allegedly assaulted a group of hitchhikers on 2 October 2017, mistaking them for criminals.

One of the hitchhikers, Lerato ‘Edgar Mokotso, told OFM News previously that he and three other people were hitchhiking on the N1 outside Trompsburg, heading to Edenburg. They got a lift in a white Iveco panel van which was stopped by police shortly after they left the hiking spot. The group was fingered for a robbery at a local furniture store. They allege police assaulted them while they were in custody before releasing them for wrongful arrest the same day. Mokotso is content that IPID is taking the police officers to book for the alleged assault.

OFM News