Sickening video emerged today of South African police officers tying a man to their van and dragging him through the streets.
Mido Macia, 27, was found dead in police custody just two hours after being arrested for the parking dispute in the Daveyton township.
The incident brings fresh embarrassment to the country’s criminal justice system which is under intense international scrutiny due to the high profile Oscar Pistorius murder trial.
In this still frame, taxi driver Mida Macia is shown being dragged along the road by a moving police van, with his limbs carried by officers
Footage posted by a South African newspaper shows Mido Macia, dressed in a red jumper, black trousers and white trainers, being surrounded by police officers in a scuffle
A crowd gathered as at least four officers were seen to be manhandling Mr MaciaMobile phone footage posted online today shows Mr Macia, dressed in a red T-shirt, black trousers and white trainers, being manhandled by police as a large crowd gathered.
The shaky video shows Mr Macia being dragged towards the police van, before the crowd gets in the way of the camera.
One onlooker told The Daily Sun that police officers drove Mr Macia’s Toyota Avanza away before returning to the scene with a police van.
Officers slammed one of the van doors in the taxi driver’s face, leaving him covered in blood.
Mr Macia was heard begging officers to stop the assault.
One onlooker told the South African Daily Sun that Mr Macia was heard begging police to stop the assault
Mr Macia was held with his hands handcuffed above his head before the driver of the police van pulled awayWhen the crowd parts, Mr Macia has had his hands handcuffed above his head and to the inside of the van.
The officer driving the van is seen to reverse while Mr Macia tries to stop himself being caught underneath.
Members of the crowd are seen filming on their smartphones as officers pick up his legs and carry him as the van pulls away.
They then drop him on the floor and he is dragged along the road. The van stops again and two police officers pick up a leg each and run behind the van as it picks up speed.
Again, they dropped his limbs as the van drove out of the camera’s sight.
The victim – a Mozambican immigrant – was found dead in a police cell just over two hours later.
The taxi driver’s distraught family said all he had done was argue with the police over an alleged parking violation.
The incident comes after South African police officers shot and killed 34 striking workers at the Marikana mine in August last year.
Mr Macia was arrested at a marketplace in the Daveyton township outside Johannesburg at 6.50pm on Tuesday.
According to witnesses had been beeping his taxi’s horn to attract passengers when police arrived.
Despite his plea for police to stop attacking him, officers carried on beating Mr Macia
Mr Macia was dragged down the street by a moving police van while two officers picked up his legs‘[Police] argued with Macia and then they beat him up’, an anonymous witness told South Africa’s Daily Sun newspaper, which first revealed the scandal.
‘They handcuffed him to the back of the van and slammed the door in his face. With blood running down his face they drove off.
‘He was in pain, he cried and asked the cops to stop but they continued anyway.’
This morning, South Africa’s Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), which has launched an investigation, confirmed that Mr Macia was found dead in his police cell at 9.15pm.
Moses Dlamini, spokesman for the unit, said a post mortem revealed the probable cause of death was head injuries with internal bleeding.
In a statement, Mr Dlamini said that investigators had been told that Mr Macia was originally approached by police because his minibus taxi was blocking the road.
Two policemen – a constable and a warrant officer – tried to get him to move on, Mr Dlamini said, but ‘the taxi driver then allegedly assaulted the Constable and took his police firearm.
Officers dropped Mr Macia’s legs once more and he was dragged along the ground
The van sped away from the crowd with Mr Macia still handcuffed to the back‘The warrant officer overpowered the taxi driver and handed the firearm back to his colleague’, the spokesman’s statement read.
‘When back up arrived the Constable was still at the scene, struggling to put the suspect in the police van.’
Mr Dlamini said officers allegedly managed to put the ‘resisting suspect’ into the police van and took him to the police cells, where he later died.
This morning The Daily Sun quoted an anonymous prisoner who was in the police station as saying:
‘They killed him. They beat him up so badly in here.’
The fresh scandal has already prompted a furious backlash in South Africa.
This morning, Frans Cronje from the respected South African Institute for Race Relations think tank said: ‘This dragging the Mozambican behind the police van is a level of barbarity on a par with police behaviour at Marikana.
‘We strongly support the police use of force to meet the criminal onslaught in South Africa But this is not that.
‘This is an ill disciplined and brutal rabble that have lost all respect for themselves, their jobs, the societies they work in.’
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