Cops claim they were strip-searched in front of colleagues, suspect's wife

21 June 2018 - 06:37 By Graeme Hosken
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SAPS. File photo.
SAPS. File photo.
Image: Elvis Ntombela

Four Johannesburg police officers, including two women, were allegedly stripped and paraded naked in front of their colleagues and the wife of a suspected drug peddler they had just arrested.

Gauteng police have confirmed that the alleged incident at Soweto’s Dobsonville police station last month is being investigated. The SA Police Union was the first to sound the alarm and now parliament’s police portfolio committee is demanding an explanation from provincial police management.

One of the policewomen said the brigadier told them to “take off everything, our bras, panties, our socks, everything. We had to bend down and turn around to show that we were not hiding the money anywhere”.

The suspected peddler’s wife had apparently told the station commissioner the constables had robbed the driver of a car they had pulled over and searched. The driver was her husband.

Gauteng provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Deliwe de Langa said she had assigned senior officers to conduct the investigation. “The investigation is due to be completed [this week]. These allegations are disturbing and we need to get to the bottom of what actually happened.”

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