MBABANE: Vusi Shongwe, an exiled Swazi bomb suspect has filed an application with the High Court of Eswatini where he seeks the release of a political report allegedly hidden by the Swazi state for 13 years now!
Shongwe is challenging the current Eswatini Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini to make public the findings of Doctor Austin Ezeogu led Commission of Inquiry into the alleged torture of over 13 political activists in Swaziland.
The letter as copied from the Prime Minister of Eswatini Mandvulo Dlamini, which was sent to government’s spokesperson, as well as filed at the High Court of Eswatini.
“Re: Application for the release and publication of the commission of inquiry report on the alleged assault and torture of 15 bomb suspects in 2005/6 Treason Trial bail application. Commissioned by then Acting Chief Justice Jacobus Annandale: 10th March 2006, Criminal Trial No.256/2005,”it reads.
Ironically, the government medical doctor was given an instruction to investigate allegations that political activists were tortured in Eswatini.
During the interview senior medical doctor, Dr. Austin Ezeogu who handled the inquiry gave the impression that he long concluded the report and gave it to Swazi authorities.
“Let me ask you a question, if you are given an instruction to investigate. After finishing the investigation, do you make the report public? Or you give it to the relevant authorities who gave you the instruction to investigate? Surely, the government of Eswatini can give you answers on this matter, I am a civil servant of Eswatini,” he added.
This incident dates back to the time when Absalom Themba Dlamini was still in office as Prime Minister of Swaziland now renamed Eswatini.
Reached for a comment, Themba Dlamini referred all questions to the current government.
“May you talk to the current government about this issue,” Dlamini added.
However, Sabelo Dlamini Eswatini’s Acting Government Spokesperson said the matter was still pending.
“Any issue filed in court has to go through court processes,” he said.
This comes after Vusi Shongwe was forced into exile at the height of the bombing incidents. He later founded the Swaziland Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) while in hiding in South Africa.
His prayer is that the Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala compels the current Prime Minister to make the report public. This information was sourced from a court letter written by Shongwe. Shongwe alleged that the report must be ‘exhumed’, and this comes after the suspect and many others were rounded up and jailed or detained for an alleged spate of bombings in Eswatini prior to 2005.
Information has been sourced from Eswatini Newsweek Online Publiucation.
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