KwaZulu-Natal cop accuses police of R200 000 extortion and torture

Officer claims he was told to pay a bribe to be freed

- By Setumo Stone

A KwaZulu-Natal police officer said he was kidnapped by other lawmen and told to cough up a bribe of hundreds of thousands of rands in exchange for his freedom or face severe consequences, and when he refused, he alleges, the violence escalated.

Suspended cop Samkeliso Mlotshwa, who was arrested in November last year on a business trip in Mozambique over a notorious kidnapping incident in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), has accused his colleagues, and Interpol associates, of demanding a R200 000 bribe in exchange for his freedom.

When he refused, they arrested and tortured him, according to an affidavit he submitted during his bail hearing at iLembe Magistrate's Court in KZN before the charges against him were withdrawn.

Mlotshwa was one of three men accused in the high-profile kidnapping and extortion of KZN businessman Zakariyya Desai, from whom a staggering R35-million ransom was allegedly demanded his co-accused were Esmael Maulide Ramos Nangy and Setefane Pereira da Costa Brites.

Mlotshwa's affidavit, now a public record to be scrutinised before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system, alleges that not only was he unlawfully arrested in Mozambique, but that the men in uniform turned his ordeal into a cash-grab and a campaign of violence.