Africa-Press – Lesotho. IT is a sad story that vividly illustrates the extent to which some of Lesotho’s police officers are willing to go to cover up for the shocking acts of brutality done by their colleagues in the course of duty.
When pressed to disclose what happened, the police then cook up a long story to cover up for their misdeeds. That is what happened to Leloko Makutoane after he died under dubious circumstances at the hands of the police in Quthing in 2019.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Advocate Hlalefang Motinyane, ordered an inquest to establish how Makutoane had died after she was handed a case in which she felt a huge cover-up.
It was only during the inquest that the police eventually brought their colleagues for questioning on how the suspect had died at their hands. The story is based on the inquest notes compiled by Makutoane’s brother, Lepolesa Makutoane.
The shocking cover-up was on full display during the inquest which raised the eyebrows of Magistrate Palesa Rantara. The magistrate then ordered a full and proper investigation on what happened.
She also ordered that the five police officers who arrested Makutoane be charged with murder. Makutoane was arrested on September 1, 2019 while sleeping in his house.
Magistrate Rantara heard during the inquest that Makutoane’s body was full of bruised and his skull had been fragmented. There was also a wound above the eye and his arm was broken.
The police’s explanation was that Makutoane was not well handcuffed, which enabled him to run away and during the chase in the darkness he fell into a pool of water where he suffocated and died.
However, an autopsy report by Dr Lefatle Phakoana, a government’s post mortem examiner, refers to the police’s report saying “the deceased was assaulted and died on the spot”.
Dr Phakoana, according to the finding of Magistrate Rantara, had been given an impression that it was the village crime prevention group (mahokela) who had killed Makutoane.
Family members who had attended the post mortem at the Lesotho Funeral Services mortuary told the magistrate that they heard Dr Phakoana saying “mahokela were so violent that they broke the man’s skull and his ribs” in a conversation with an official at the mortuary.
However, when the family pressed for an explanation of the autopsy report they were showed where Dr Phakoana referred to the police’s report to the doctor. But during the inquest it became clear that Makutoane could have been killed by the police.
Magistrate Rantara heard that Makutoane, who was from Ha-Leihloana in Quthing district, was wanted by the police in connection with arson and attempted murder cases in another village.
Makutoane, who was working in South Africa, had come home for a visit on the night of his murder and was sleeping in his house with his three minor children when the police raided him.
The police, Magistrate Rantara heard, burst into the house where Makutoane’s three children were sleeping on the floor and one of the officers kicked a child who tried raising his head to see what was happening.
Makutoane who was sleeping only in his underwear, also tried asking what was happening and the police responded curtly asking him if he had forgotten what he had done.
One of the children told the magistrate that a police officer said they were going to break their father’s arms, as they tried to drag him out still naked in a hurry.
The other officer stopped his colleague saying they should dress him up, which they did while others rummaged the wardrobe saying they were looking for a gun, which they did not find.
At the time, Magistrate Rantara heard, Makutoane was crying loudly saying he was being abducted but the police managed to convince him that they were police officers who had come to arrest him.
The children alerted their relatives that their father had just been taken and they in turn told the village headman, Chief Mokheseng Ntho, who organised his men to follow Makutoane on suspicion that he had been abducted. Procedurally the police notify the village chief when they enter his area to arrest any of his subjects, as a chief is the top-most authority.
Chief Ntho told Magistrate Rantara that he did not find where Makutoane had been taken until his aunt told one of his subjects that he heard a man, who is not a policeman, telling him that he had accompanied the police to Ha-Leihloana.
The man, identified only as Xolani, not knowing that the woman was related to Makutoane allegedly told her that he had died, only getting surprised when the woman raised a voice asking why they had killed her child.
Magistrate Rantara also heard that there was another man who was not a police officer, called Sethape, who was also present Makutoane’s arrest. The Makutoane family told Magistrate Rantara that the police were in the company of banna ba likobo, as the violent famo gangsters are referred to, when they raided Makutoane’s home.
Chief Ntho, after hearing that his subject had been taken by the police, called the local police boss in search of him and later took his men to the police station where he was not immediately told that Makutoane was dead.
A police officer he found only said he was not there. It was later when he heard from relatives who were inquisitive that Makutoane was dead and that he had been taken to the mortuary.
Magistrate Rantara heard that the mortuary official was shown the bruised corpse at a holding cell door at the police station and one of the police officers said: “Do you see what happens to a person who fights against the police?”
She also heard that the police who had gone to arrest Makutoane, who included traffic cops, travelled in a private car belonging to a villager. Also when they carried the lifeless body of Makutoane they asked the villager to help with a van.
That villager, the magistrate heard, was heard saying a person he had carried had been so battered that he wondered whether he would live. The police officer told Magistrate Rantara that after they left Makutoane’s home, the deceased was handcuffed with his hands at the back.
The officers told the magistrate that on the way to the police station, Makutoane managed to run away because the handcuffs were not properly locked and they gave chase in the darkness. Makutoane, the police say, fell into a body of water and drowned and they did not see him until at dawn when they pulled him out of the water.
They told the magistrate that they sought the van from one of the villagers with the intention to take him to hospital but never explained why they took him to the police station instead.
The family told the magistrate that for the police to take action with a semblance of investigation they had to go to the police headquarters to ask for help.
Lepolesa Makutoane, the victim’s brother, said after they obtained the post mortem report they went to the police headquarters where they met Assistant Police Commissioner Motlatsi Mapola.
Lepolesa said ACP Mapola called the Quthing police commander, with his phone put on loud speaker, and asked him what happened. The answer was that “these people have done sh*t, they went there to arrest a person accompanied by famo gangsters.
They threw him into a river, assaulted him, stuffed him into the boot of a Honda Fit and then took him out and put him in a van. They shattered his head”.
The Quthing police then dispatched investigators whom Magistrate Rantara found that “did not perform duties with their conscience” and she directed that they should re-do their work properly.
She found that a detective who went to Ha-Leihloana to investigate the murder went there without knowing the area well and there was nobody to guide him on where the police who had gone to arrest Makutoane went.
The detective told the magistrate that “I was examining a wide area” when asked what exactly he was looking for. “I was reconstructing the crime scene,” he said.
Another top cop who was responsible for the arrest of Makutoane gave an account that Magistrate Rantara found wanting. Even after the inquest, which was completed earlier this year, no one among the suspected police officers has been arrested and charged with murder. The police management only suspended five police officers in 2019 after they killed Makutoane pending investigations.
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