South African policemen jailed for 15 years for the killing of a Mozambican taxi driver
Eight officers imprisoned 15 years each for the killing of a Mozambican taxi driver dragged behind a police van.
Eight
South African policemen were jailed on Wednesday for 15 years each for the
murder of a Mozambican taxi driver who was dragged behind a police van in a
horrific incident caught by mobile phone cameras.
The death of Mido
Macia provoked widespread outrage, and threw the spotlight on South Africa's
police force and frequent allegations of its brutality.
The
27-year-old Macia died in police custody in February 2013 after being arrested
for parking his car on the wrong side of the road.
Video
footage showed Macia being manhandled, handcuffed to the back of a police van,
and dragged hundreds of metres in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg. Two hours
later he was found dead in his cell in a pool of blood.
"Each of you are
sentenced to 15 years imprisonment," High Court Judge Bert Bam said in the
capital, Pretoria.
"The arrest of
the deceased and then dragging behind the vehicle was totally unnecessary,
uncalled for, and not justified at all."
Aljazeera.com
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