(MENAFN- The Post)
MASERU – PRIME Minister Moeketsi Majoro has reprimanded Police Commissioner Holomo Molibeli after a group of police recruits were caught assaulting civilians in the streets last week.
A group of Basotho in the diaspora wrote to Majoro last week expressing serious concerns over the police conduct.
Majoro held a virtual meeting with basotho dispora last Friday
In his response, Majoro said he summoned Commissioner Molibeli and condemned the police brutality.
He wondered what the police are taught at their training college.
A video of police recruits assaulting people in the streets triggered a fierce backlash from the public last week.
The recruits were assaulting people for trivial offences such as not wearing masks and crossing roads where there were no pedestrian crossing marks.
In one of the video clips, the police recruits, who were wearing khaki uniforms, were seen punching a man who fell on the pavement at the Cathedral area in Maseru.
In another clip, a man was told to lie on his belly while they hit him on the buttocks with truncheons while others kicked him on the sides.
“I condemn these actions,” Majoro said.
“This clique of young kids coming out of training and engaging in violence is very worrisome,” he said.
Majoro said he instructed Commissioner Molibeli and his deputies to take immediate action against those involved in the crimes.
He said he also asked the police management to look deeply into the recruits' training programme.
“How come that newly trained and recruited police come out violent like that already? What were they being trained for in the last six months?” he said.
“I was horrified by the videos and I don't know how to describe them. I did not know if I was looking at a fictitious video or fake video,” he said.
When he questioned Commissioner Molibeli about the authenticity of the videos, the police boss confirmed that they were real.
“I asked him to look at their training programme. That is not the police that we should be training, I am horrified.”
He also said the issue was receiving attention within the government adding that the security forces were already working on the reports.
“The reports of the last week indicated that if this matter is not taken care of it will lead to civil war,” he said.
Basotho in the diaspora were also concerned about the escalating incidents of murders of women and girls in the country as well as armed robberies.
Majoro said he was disappointed after 75 guns were stolen at the Mafeteng district police armoury with a further 159 guns at the Lesotho Police Staff Association (Leposa) not being accounted for.
He said Leposa was given a licence to buy guns on behalf of its members which is a normal thing.
He said he is wondering whether the guns which are killing people fell into the wrong hands through police facilitation.
“We need to restructure our police, I intend to do so,” he said.
He said he is concerned about the escalation of killings of women at the hands of men.
He said the chief targets of murders are“especially women, the suspects are mostly men yet in our entire heritage men have to protect women and not to deprive them of their lives”.
He said he had held several meetings with security agencies to stop the murders as they have the resources to do so.
He said in the last four weeks they recorded 10 murders unlike in the previous months where they used to record more.
He said they are trying hard to root out the killings in the country.
The diaspora's concerns come barely a month after Prime Minister Majoro said the police lack capacity to investigate serious cases involving theft of public funds.
Majoro was responding to the diaspora's concerns that the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) uncovered many acts of financial wrong-doing that have not been investigated by the police to date.
Majoro told them that he was disappointed at the way things were happening.
The diaspora were specifically referring to cases which Selibe Mochoboroane investigated when he was still the PAC chairman two years ago before he was appointed a minister.
He said it was the responsibility of the police and the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) to act against criminal elements.
“Their job is to take that evidence and do their job, it is not the public accounts committee that does that, it does recommendations which will later be adopted by parliament,” he said.
He added that he asked the institutions about what had happened and they said they were still investigating.
“There is now the issue of the capacity of the investigating institutions in Lesotho,” he said.
He said they need to deal with the capacity to deal with commercial crimes, saying this is where the country is weaker.
“Money laundering becomes very difficult for us as Basotho.”
He said fraud is easier to deal with and money laundering is not difficult.
“We should deal with this within the police (and we should capacitate them by) bringing more auditors than to train people just as a policemen.”
He said the investigative institutions have to take the matter further and run with it as the PAC had already done its job well.
Nkheli Liphoto
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