From: philip@ziggy.stanford.edu (Philip Machanick)
Subject: UPI: South African government reacts to allegations of police murders
Reply-To: philip@ziggy.stanford.edu (Philip Machanick)
Organization: CS Department, Stanford University, California, USA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 00:05:05 GMT

	JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (UPI) -- The South African government said
Sunday it would investigate allegations by a well-known pathologist that
police have murdered at least 180 prisoners in police custody.
	``The government regards these allegations in a very serious light
and will do everything possible to deal with the issue properly,'' the
government's Minister of Law and Order Hernus Kriel said in a statement.
	He said the allegations would either be investigated by a judicial
commission of inquiry, or by a team of attorneys-general and detectives.
	However, Kriel made it clear the government planned to challenge Dr
Jonathan Gluckman's allegations.
	``The conclusion that everyone who dies in police custody, died as a
result of police actions, is clearly not correct. It is of the greatness
importance for the (South African) police that the truth concerning the
death of detainees be established,'' Kriel said.
	Gluckman allegations included police ``hanging'' the body of a man
who had died of head injuries to make his death look like a suicide, and
prisoners dying after savage assaults.
	``I have constant evidence of police handling people in a vicious
manner. My impression is that they are totally out of control. They do
what they like,'' Gluckman was reported as saying in the weekly Sunday
Times.
	Gluckman did not specify a time period for the deaths, but said he
decided to speak out after the July 14 death of a 19-year-old black
youth whose body was discovered in bushes 12 hours after he had been
arrested.
	Gluckman, who testified for anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko's
family at the inquest after Biko died of brain injuries in police
custody in 1977, said the 19-year-old's injuries were consistent with
witness accounts that he had been brutally beaten by police.
	``This is a 19-year-old boy. Not charged with an offense. Tortured,
ill-treated and killed. He could have been a son of mine.
	``I get speechless, I get sick at heart about the whole affair. It
goes on and on and on. I don't know how to stop it. I don't think the
government knows how to stop it,'' Gluckman said.
	Gluckman said he approached the country's commissioner of police,
senior government ministers and even President Frederik de Klerk with
his evidence, but his efforts had proved fruitless.
	He said Gen. Johan Van der Merwe, the commissioner of police, thanked
him for the evidence, but has not contacted him since.
	Gluckman said he met with Kriel and Minister of Correctional Services
Adriaan Vlok in February and said they were shocked at the evidence.
However, the Sunday Times reported nothing came of the meeting.
	Gluckman said he wrote to de Klerk on May 25, appealing for ordinary
people to be protected against barbarism, particularly in the hands of
the government's employees.
	On June 25 de Klerk wrote back saying he would communicate with
Gluckman in due course.
	Gluckman, who is usually asked by black attorneys to perform post
mortem examinations on people who have died in police custody, said he
had come to the conclusion that senior police officers and government
ministers did not really know what was happening in South Africa's
police cells.
	South Africa was plunged into a political crisis on June 23 when the
African National Congress withdrew from pro-democracy talks claiming
government and police involvement in politically motivated violence
which has claimed more than 6,000 lives since February 1990.
--
Philip Machanick
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african,sci.logic,sanet.talk.politics