A police officer, who was allegedly attacked at the weekend at a Magalieskruin bar, had to undergo two operations and received 83 stitches after being hit in the face with a broken glass.
Constable Leon Mentz, of the Sinoville police station in the north of Pretoria, was reportedly also hit with a bottle during the attack.
Mentz was off-duty at the time of the alleged attack on Saturday evening at Die Kantoor bar in Braam Pretorious Street.
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Mentz and his brother said they were playing pool when two of their alleged attackers entered the bar and approached them.
“One of them was arrested in an operation I worked on a few weeks ago. I didn’t know the other person,” Leon Mentz told Rekord.
“They were whispering to one other; one of them said ‘f*** the police, they will do nothing to us’.”
Mentz claimed the two men kept interfering with their pool game.
Mentz’s brother said when he wanted to go to the bathroom, the men stopped him from doing so.
When Mentz’s brother did finally go to the bathroom, Mentz said he got suspicious when the men followed his brother inside.
“I went to check what was going on. As I entered the bathroom, the troublemakers were on top of my brother. I tried to pull them off them when the fists started swinging. I then heard someone shouting ‘hit him with a glass bottle’. The next moment I felt a bang against the back of my head. As I turned around, I saw a woman.”
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Mentz told his brother he was bleeding and managed to get himself and his brother out of the bathroom.
The brothers said they then went to the parking lot because they wanted to go to the hospital.
Their alleged attackers, however, followed them and Mentz was again hit in the face with a broken glass.
“I just heard one of them shouting that we are going to die today. He also said he was going to go fetch his firearm.”
The alleged attack was only over when local Community Policing Forum members arrived at the parking lot.
“My brother then rushed me to the Montana hospital were we both got stitches.”
Afterwards, Mentz was transferred to the Netcare Akasia Hospital where he underwent plastic surgery to his face.
Mentz also had to undergo an operation on his eye.
Stefan Engelbrecht, owner of the bar, confirmed the attack.
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He, however, denied that it happened on Die Kantoor’s premises.
“The attack happened in the parking area and not in the bar,” Engelbrecht told Rekord.
“Three troublemakers, who are not regular patrons at Die Kantoor, came onto the premises and it was obvious they were out to cause trouble.”
Police spokesperson Colonel Alet Pratt of the Sinoville police station confirmed police are investing a case of grievous bodily harm.
Three people – two men and a woman – have since been arrested and appeared in the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court earlier today.
None of them were granted bail and they are expected to appear in court again on Friday.
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