Three months after his arrest, Gardee murder accused says he is still in pain from cop beatings

One of the men arrested several months ago in connection with the murder of Hillary Gardee said he still suffered from body pain after being assaulted by the police after his arrest.

“I still have body pains from that time,” Albert Gama told the Mbombela (Nelspruit) magistrate's court during his bail application on Tuesday.

Gama spent most of the proceedings detailing the alleged assault and torture he suffered at the hands of police during his arrest in May.

“When we arrived at the police station they put me in a room and one of the three police officers who were not in uniform put a plastic on my head and started suffocating me. They also put something on my feet that made them to shiver,” he said.

Gama told the court he was also pushed from the stairs and he fell, leaving him with a cut under his left eye which left him bleeding excessively.

“Blood came out running badly. It was so bad that I finished three rolls of tissues, trying to stop the bleeding but it never stopped,” he said.

Magistrate Martin Morris asked Gama to come closer to him so he could examine the injuries he was talking about.

Morris then noted the injuries on Gama's face.

Gama told the court that he believes police wrongfully arrested him as he is not the person they were looking for when they arrived at the guest house where he was working as a security guard.

“When police arrived there, they said they were looking for Khabzela. The people they found told them there is no Khabzela working at any of the three guest houses owned by [Philemon] Lukhele, but they told him that there is a Gama, referring to me. The police then asked to be taken to Gama and that is how I was arrested,” he said.

Lukhele is one of those arrested and charged for Gardee's murder. 

Gama maintained he knew nothing about the charges brought against him and said he had never met the deceased. He also said he has also never held a firearm in his life and didn't even know how to operate one.

Gardee, who was the daughter of former EFF secretary-general Godrich Gardee, went missing on April 29 after going shopping with her daughter. The three-year-old girl was abandoned a few streets from their home unharmed, while Gardee’s body was found dumped next to a pine plantation 40km outside Mbombela on May 2. She had been shot dead.

Gama's bail hearing has been adjourned to Thursday.

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