Nathaniel SHILONGO, who was detained in northern Namibia for almost two years, was released in January 1989 and gave details of how he had been tortured while in custody. Shilongo, a PLAN combatant and medical orderly, was abducted from Onandjokwe Lutheran Hospital in March 1987 while being treated for a leg wound which he sustained in a South African ambush while on his way to sabotage the Ondangwa electricity supply.
Shilongo revealed that he had been assaulted and interrogated in spite of his serious injury, and that the authorities continued to hold him in the hope of forcing him to become a police informer. He was beaten, given electric shocks and made to sleep in a hole covered with wire netting. After a soldier had kicked him so hard that his leg wound reopened and bled he was briefly taken for hospital treatment. However, soldiers again removed and tortured him, partially suffocating him with water and a plastic bag.
Three days after his abduction from hospital Shilongo was taken 30 kilometres into Angola by the SADF and told to point out SWAPO bases. However, the soldiers withdrew under fire from Angolan forces. He continued to suffer alternate bouts of interrogation, torture and medical treatment, until he was detained more or less permanently in the police cells at Oshakati. He eventually made a statement before a magistrate in Tsumeb but no charges were laid against him. Instead he faced a variety of inducements to collaborate with the police. On at least two occasions former combatants who had turned informer after being captured were made his cell-mates in order to pump him for information. In January 1989 Shilongo was transferred to Osie detention centre.
