Wandile Dludlu, President of the banned Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO), who was tortured by police earlier this month, has been left badly beaten by prison warders.
Dludlu is reported to have been ‘beaten to a pulp’ by more than 200 Correctional Services warder recruits.Dludlu was kicked all over the body and left seriously injured.
The Swazi Observer reported yesterday (22 September 2009) the incident that almost cost Dludlu’s life happened outside the Correctional Services main gate just after Mario Masuku, president of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) had been dramatically acquitted of terrorism charges.
Journalists from the Swazi Observer and the Times of Swaziland who witnessed the attack were also beaten up.
The Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, said the violence happened when PUDEMO and SWAYOCO members started singing songs and toyi-toyed in front of the main gate.
Warders asked the demonstrators to move and ‘within the twinkle of an eye’ more than 200 recruits came running from the dormitories towards the gate and a heavy fight ensued.
Dludlu tried to save his life from the recruits by boarding a bus that was destined for the industrial site but it sped off and the recruits managed to catch him and beat him with sticks, fists and kicked him all over the body, the Observer reported.
Dludlu was arrested and tortured earlier this month by Swazi police because they believed he knew where guns, explosives and ‘war missiles’ were being stored. According to a report in the Swazi News these were to be used ‘in an operation to assassinate the country’s influential politicians and other high ranking members of royalty’.
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