According to Father Heinz Hunke, a Roman Catholic priest writing from Windhoek, torture has been and is being carried out in Namibia at Oshakati, Ogongo, Onuno, Ondangwa, Rundu, Tsumeb and Grootfontein in the north of the country, and in Katutura, outside Windhoek. In a paper entitled The Cancer of Torture in SWA-Namibia and circulated in November 1976, Father Hunke listed 17 forms of physical and psychological torture currently in use by the regular police, investigating officers and members of the South African Army. They include being suspended by handcuffs and beaten; sleep deprivation; burning with cigarette butts; being bound in a crouching position to a stick placed under the knees and over the elbows, lifted to a height of about one metre and dropped to fall on the spine; being given electric shocks while bound in this crouching position; being made to lie flat on the ground and shots fired a few inches over their bodies. During 1976, according to Father Hunke's information, six people gave evidence of torture while in detention and under interrogation to courts in Namibia, while some of the many who have never had an opportunity of testifying before a court or commission of inquiry submitted written affidavits.
Legal defence counsel who attempt to use evidence of torture to have statements made to the police under duress dismissed as null and void find themselves in a "precarious and difficult position." The complacent attitude of the authorities is well illustrated by a statement by Captain Kruger of the Johannesburg SAP when questioned in the Windhoek Supreme Court on the use of torture against an accused person in September 1976. "I have been with the murder and robbery squad in Johannesburg for the last fourteen years," Kruger told the court, "and these allegations are made against us daily in court. So far no allegation has ever been proved against me." In other cases, the courts have listened to evidence of torture but dismissed the allegations of defendants as unsubstantiated and unproven. According to Father Hunke: "The defence have to try and achieve the best possible outcome of the case for their client. If they can achieve a minimum sentence by leaving out the question of torture altogether, they will do so for humanitarian reasons, knowing that the question of principle will get him nowhere."
