In July and August four people are known to have died in security police detention, bringing the number of detainees who are known to have died while being held under security legislation since March 1976 to 23, and since 1963 to 45. The most recent deaths are:
Phakamile Mabija (27) died 7 July Elijah Loza (59) died 2 August Dr. Hoosen Haffejee (26) died 3 August Bayempin Mzizi (62) died 15 August
It was incorrectly reported in the Rand Daily Mail (1.8.77) that a 59-year old woman, Mrs. Rose Segalwe, had died while in detention. Other reports make it clear she died on 9 July while serving an 18-month prison sentence for an alleged role in the demonstrations in Soweto during 1976. Thus her death cannot be regarded as death in detention.
Phakamile Mabija plunged to his death from the sixth floor of the Transvaal Road police station in Kimberley on 7 July. He was being held after an incident when buses were stoned during a bus boycott in Kimberley by African and Coloured commuters which began on 26 June. He was to have appeared in court the following day under the Riotous Assemblies Act. Mr. Mabija, who lived in Vergenoeg, was the Kimberley church warden of the parish of St. James, and a full-time youth worker for the Anglican church.
At the inquest, Col. J.D. du Plessis, Chief of the Kimberley Security Police, said that as a rule windows on that floor were usually secured with locks but that the window where Mabija had fallen from had been opened to allow fresh air into the room. He disputed a statement made by Mabija's sister that a white detective had told her brother: "Say goodbye to your family, you will not see them again...."
Elijah Nkwenkwe Loza (59), a Cape Town trade unionist of long standing, died in Tygerberg hospital, Cape Town on 2 August while being held under security laws. He was detained under the Terrorism Act on 27 May and held at Victor Verster prison in Paarl. He was transferred from there to the hospital on 8 July in a coma. Security police claimed he was suffering from a stroke.
A former bakery worker and regular migratory labourer, travelling from the Ciskei to Cape Town, Loza became an organiser for unorganized workers in the Cape Town area. In the early 1960's he was Secretary of the African Commercial and Distributive Workers' Union in Cape Town, and was Chairman of SACTU in the Western Cape region. He was one of the first people to be detained under the "90-day law" in 1963, and was re-detained after the first 90 days. He was charged with 44 others in November 1963, (the Goodwood case), and sentenced to six years in prison, but was acquitted on appeal. He was then placed under 24-hour house arrest, and spent nearly ten years under banning orders. He was again banned for five years in November 1976.
On 13 July Mr. Loza's ex-wife and daughter claimed he had been assaulted by security police while in detention. Mrs Girlie Loza said she visited her ex-husband in hospital. "He was unconscious when I saw him. He mumbled incoherent things when I visited him again a few days later. He was in bad shape. I am sure the police assaulted him while he was in detention," she said. His daughter, Miss Ethel Loza, said when she visited her father at the hospital "there were bruises and a swelling on his head and he was jerking so violently that he had to be restrained. When I asked him which parts of his body were painful he pointed to his head, shoulders and private parts."
A week after this a Tygerberg Hospital spokesman said Mr Loza's condition "is very much improved." Within two weeks he was dead.
Dr. Hoosen Mia Haffejee, died within four hours of his detention, in Brighton Beach police station cells, Durban on 3 August. Security Police claimed he was found hanging in his cell from the leg of his trousers. The Divisional Chief of the Security Police in Durban said that Dr Haffejee had been detained under the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act in connection with an investigation under the Terrorism Act, shortly after midnight on 4 August. Dr Haffejee, a dentist at King George V Hospital, Durban, qualified at the Nagpur Medical and Dental College in India and returned to South Africa in October 1975.
At the official post-mortem it was claimed his death was consistent with hanging. However, after an independent post-mortem conducted in Pietermaritzburg before his funeral there, Dr Haffejee's brother Mr Hoosen Haffejee said there were 25 abrasions on the body, arms and legs of his brother's body as well as burn marks.
Bayempin Mzizi (62) was also claimed by Security Police to have been found hanging in a Brighton Beach prison cell, Durban on 15 August. He had been detained under the Terrorism Act.
The Terrorism Act detainee from Kagiso who was taken to hospital after allegedly falling from a window in Krugersdorp police station was identified as Johnson Vusimuzi Ivan Nyathi by the police, who said he had been detained on 9 December 1976 together with Aaron Khoza, who died in detention on 26 March. Nyathi, who was admitted to Leratong Hospital on 2 February was still there under guard in July.
