“THEY told me even if I went to the police, they were Nigerian and they could buy the case from the police.”
This is what a Zimbabwean man, Moses Mukarati (46), said a group of men he believed to be Nigerian, told him while they assaulted him.
Mukarati was beaten by a group of men outside a pub in the early hours of Sunday morning for what he described as no apparent reason.
“I was with a friend outside Panther’s braaiing meat to sell to customers who drink there,” Mukarati explained, “when a man from the church next door started cleaning around us.”
“I told him he did not need to clean as I would do it myself.”
The man then moved away but minutes later a pub patron, who was buying meat, shouted at him, asking whether he was a pastor. Mukarati said this upset the man and he charged at the pub patron with his broom.
“An argument started and I told my friend we should move away because I did not like fights.”
Once inside the pub, an employee approached Mukarati and questioned him about what happened outside.
“We went outside and I explained to him what happened. That’s when the man from the church came straight at me, pointed at me and said ‘you’ three times before accusing me of stealing his wallet.”
He said the man and his friends started beating him up. Two other men, one of them a security guard, tried to help but there were too many men attacking Mukarati.
“As they hit me, they said ‘you are a Zimbabwean, we will beat you up. Even if you go to the police we will buy the case’.”
He said all his friend could do was stand there helplessly because he was afraid to intervene as they were outnumbered.
Mukarati was injured on the head, on the side of his face and in his mouth – one of his front teeth was almost knocked out. He was bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose.
His wallet had also been stolen.
After that he went to Tembisa Hospital where they treated him.
“They had to stitch the loose tooth to the other front tooth so it wouldn’t come out. I went back to the hospital for three days. I will go back again for a check-up after two weeks.”
He went to the police and opened a case the next day.
Kempton Park SAPS police spokesperson Capt Jethro Mtshali confirmed the incident and said a case of common robbery was being investigated.
“I just want to know why I was treated so inhumanely and beaten up for no reason. I was hurt so badly and yet I did nothing wrong,” Mukarati says.
