8 Policemen Get 15 Years Each For Mozambican’s Death

PRETORIA – Eight policemen each received a 15-year jail sentence on Wednesday for the murder of a Mozambican taxi driver who was dragged behind a police van, according to news reports.

The death of Mido Macia in February 2013 was caught on a mobile phone camera which showed him being manhandled, handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged hundreds of metres. Just over two hours later, he was found dead in his cell in a pool of blood.

Macia, 27, had been arrested for parking his car on the wrong side of the road in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg.

High Court judge Bert Bam, who found the eight men guilty in August, said their behaviour was “barbaric and totally unacceptable” and the officers had “clearly abused” their right to use necessary force to carry out an arrest, according to news reports.

“What made their conduct more reprehensible was the cowardly attack in the cell on a defenceless and already seriously injured man,” Bam reportedly said. “It goes without saying that the community is entitled to protection against behaviour of rogue police officers.”

The incident caused widespread outrage about police behavior, and was one of the earlier instances of mobile phone cameras being used to spotlight police atrocities, an issue that has been raised recently in South Africa and the US, among other places.