MASERU
Tšeliso Mokhosi, the current Minister of Labour and Employment says he almost died at the hands of the most heartless five police officers in August 2017. Mokhosi was arrested in relation to the death of one Police Constable Mokalekale Khetheng.
Mokhosi said this when giving his testimony as a defense witness during a trial within a trial in a case in which four members of the Lesotho Mounted Police Services (LMPS) are charged with murder of Khetheng.
He stated that five police officers namely Lethoko, Nkeane, Mohoang, Lebajoa and Chabalala subjected him to the cruelest and inhumane treatment one can imagine while interrogating him. He indicated that he was assaulted and suffocated adding that he ended up soiling himself.
Mokhosi said he arrived at Maseru Police Head Quarters at around 08:30 in the morning with his lawyer Attorney Qhalehang Letsika. He said after his lawyer handed him over to the police, they told his lawyer to leave.
“After an hour or so after my lawyer had left, I was asked if I knew anything about Khetheng’s death then I told them I knew nothing. They then called one, Zele Mpheshia who cried when he saw me”, said Mokhosi. He said Mpheshia’s hands were swollen showing that he had been assaulted.
He said the police asked them if they knew each other and they said they did, the police then dismissed Mpheshia. Mokhosi said the police then told him that Mpheshia said he is implicated in Khetheng’s death.
“ I told them that he was not telling the truth, and the police said they are aware that I am not implicated in Khetheng’s death but what they want is for me to say that Mothetjoa Metsing was implicated in Khetheng’s death”, said Mokhosi
He said he told the police that he knew nothing about Metsing’s implication in Khetheng’s death. Mokhosi said at about 17:30 in the afternoon when almost every police officer had left the station and left with the five police officers, one of them who seemed to be the youngest, Lethoko said to him, ‘Mokhosi, someone’s child has died, we are not going to play with you’.
He said they then ordered him to take off all his clothing and lay on his stomach, bring his hands at the back and cuffed him, then bring his feet towards his hand for them to pass between his body and his cuffed hands.
“Because that was not an easy exercise to do, they all had to push my feet to pass between my body and hands. They then took a plastic bag, made it wet inside and asked me to allow them to put it around my face in such that I breathe inside it.” Mokhosi said he already knew that police suffocate people by doing so, so he pressed in head hard on the floor that they were not able to put the plastic on him.
“They took an iron rod that was already in the office, they put it between my neck and floor. Two of them held the bar on both sides while one stepped on my back and the two pulled the iron bar up. I felt that the iron bar was breaking my throat so I raised my head and they put the plastic”, said Mokhosi.
He said he tried to hold his breath and when the police realized they started kicking and walking over his body so he can breathe. “They continued kicking me like that until I felt there was nothing I could do. It is at that moment I realized I had to give in and it is at that time I soiled myself,” said Mokhosi.
Mokhosi said they removed the plastic and uncuffed him and ordered him to go the bathroom to clean himself. He said he went with one officer named, Chabalala and when he got to the bathroom, cleaning himself he realized that there was certain body fluid which he had excreted that is normally passed out by humans when they are about to die.
“I told the officer that had they not removed the plastic on time, I was going to die. I knew this because I had worked as a nurse assistance back in the mines in South Africa”, said Mokhosi.
