1 065 days in solitary confinement

Sekantši also alleged that AC Manaka uses an inmate, Majara Majara, to steal from the kitchen store.
He also told a commission of inquiry into last December’s mass escape that he has not been given enough food.
Sekantši is one of over 300 inmates who were brutally assaulted last December after six escaped from the facility. The prisoners were later rearrested.
Sekantši was, however, not among those who escaped.
He told the commissioner that AC Manaka was treating Majara like one of the prison officials, assigning him duties in the kitchen and distributing necessities like soap.
AC Manaka told the commission, chaired by High Court judge Justice Realeboha Mathaba, that Sekantši deserved to be in solitary confinement because he is troublesome.
“You belong to solitary confinement and you will stay there,” AC Manaka said.
Sekantši, who was arrested for housebreaking in 2016 and was sentenced to 18 years in 2018, lashed at the station manager for mistreating him and keeping him in solitary confinement since the end of 2021.
Sekantši, a confessed member of the 26-member gang, said AC Manaka locked him in isolation after he stabbed Majara with a knife in self-defence.
He said he fought with Majara after he intervened in his maltreatment of Tsebo Lesenyeho who had complained to him.
He told the commission that Majara misused his position as prison chief against Lesenyeho until the latter asked for protection from him as his homeboy.
Majara, he said, would take Lesenyeho’s cosmetics by force whenever they had quarrels.
“Due to his power in prison, Majara has confiscated Tsebo’s clothes and cosmetics,” Sekantši said.
“Tsebo (Lesenyeho) came to me and said since I know him and I knew his late parents I could intervene,” he said.
He said Majara is adored because “he has relatives in high places”.
“Tsebo complained of being forcefully turned into a wife. I know Tsebo’s parents even though they are no longer alive, so I had to step in like a brother and I started giving him all the necessities, including food,” he said.
He said Majara had become “a boss and began to behave like an officer and not an inmate”.
“Due to jealousy Majara and other inmates who are his gang members began to tell lies that I am sleeping with Lesenyeho.”
He said when he contracted Covid-19 and had to be taken to hospital “I gave Lesenyeho my box of food and other things to keep and use during my stay at the hospital”.
He said Majara started taking his things by force from Lesenyeho as there was no one to protect him anymore.
“After 14 days I returned to my cell where to my dismay I found my things taken by Majara.”
He said the jealous Majara started maltreating him too as he was also the one in charge of distributing soap and other necessities.
“That guy would pour my powdered soap on the ground instead of pouring in my container, saying the prison belongs to him.”
He complained that his cell is the coldest, does not have electricity, does not have light, and it is the most discriminated cell in the prison as inmates who reside in there are never let out even in winter.
“That cell is never opened for me to be rehabilitated, and mingle with other inmates”.
He said the inmate is dearly loved in the facility as he even has relatives in high places in the facility.
He said since his return from hospital Lesenyeho was scared to meet him, adding that he later went to his cell several times and he could not find him to take back his things from him.
“One day I went to that cell where I found Lesenyeho who was very scared and told me that Majara had taken my things “.
He also told the commission that within a short period of time Majara appeared at the door and told Lesenyeho not to be scared as he was not afraid to face him.
“He told me that I am just a child like others and that I would not get my things back.”
He stated that Majara then manhandled him and threw him against the wall, “but I did not fight back”.
He said on the same day as he was going to a section of the prison he noticed Majara coming to him and “he took out a knife and stabbed me”.
Sekantši said he fought back, pulling Majara by his balls and the knife fell to the ground.
“I took it to stab him, he did not stop attacking and I stabbed him two times.”
He ended up stabbing Majara four times, which led to him being taken to hospital.
“I was injured too but those officers in that ‘abattoir’ assaulted me badly, they broke my hand and burnt me with heaters,” he said.
Asked why he referred to the sergeants’ office as an abattoir, he said “it is because it is where many inmates are assaulted and killed”.
He said after the fight with Majara he was taken to a maximum security prison cell where he stayed alone in the cell for four days without eating or taking medication.
After that his solitary confinement was transferred to Block D where he is currently held.
“At maximum, I could not bath or wash clothes for three full months.”
Sekantši said the officers took him to hospital for stab wounds after his fight with Majara on the fourth day as one officer noticed that he was seriously injured.
“The station manager did not care about me because I had stabbed his loved prisoner,” he said.
He added that for all those months he had to live close to a toilet that could not flash.
“After days an officer would ask one inmate to bring me water to flush the toilet in a bucket.”
He said no inmate was allowed to come close to his cell.
In another incident, Sekantši said he was badly assaulted by officers after one mentally ill inmate lied that he helped him cross the fence.
“They knew that Mokhethi Ramontši was mentally sick and is now in Mohlomi, but they decided to listen to him on that day.”
He said Officer Matobo and Officer Jane were among those officers who instructed him to get down so that they could beat him.
AC Manaka responded that Sekantši “is a dangerous inmate who belongs to solitary confinement because he stabs other inmates”.
AC Manaka said it is not true that he had a special relationship with Majara, saying it was “just a normal relationship like any other inmate”.
Sekantši said he was not a dangerous inmate, saying a single warder managed to put him under control during his fight with Majara.
“I was not dangerous, I was just fighting to defend myself. He had already stabbed me.”
“You give me new punishments every day,” he told AC Manaka in the commission.
He told the commission that he recently met AC Manaka and apologised for stabbing Majara.
“I told you that I am sorry, I am rehabilitated, please take me back to the cells where other inmates stay.”
He put it to AC Manaka that he used to smuggle things with Majara, who was at some time caught stealing beans from the prison kitchen.
“He arrived in Block D for that (where Sekantši is held), and for the first time things changed because the cells were opened and checked.”
He said AC Manaka used to visit the block regularly to check them just because Majara was now in that block.
“You also assured us that in winter we would get a stove during Majara’s presence, and now it has stopped because he is out.”
AC Manaka said it would be impossible for him to smuggle anything as he never walks around the prison alone, he is always guarded.
“I never had any deal with Majara.”
“People do as they like with inmates here, and you never do anything about it,” Sekantši said to AC Manaka.
AC Manaka told the commission that Sekantši and Majara were fighting over Lesenyeho as their ‘girlfriend’.
“You were fighting for your girlfriend, stop telling lies about me,” he said.
He again told Sekantši that he belongs in the cell and the block as he has to live apart from other inmates.

Nkheli Liphoto