A man in Swaziland has been
held in jail for nearly ten years as he awaits trail.
Sikhumbuzo Mdluli, of
Ngwazini in the Manzini region was arrested and charged with murder in March
2008 and is still in the Sidvwashini Correctional Facility awaiting trial.
He has asked the High Court
of Swaziland to intervene, the Swazi
Observer newspaper reported (18 January 2018).
Mdluli is arguing that
Swaziland’s Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act says if a person does not
appear in court after six months awaiting trial in jail they should be
discharged.
The Observer said he was also arguing that ‘his continued deprivation
of liberty’ was a violation of the Swaziland Constitution as he was not getting
a speedy and fair trial before a competent court of law.
He is not the only person jailed for lengthy periods
awaiting trial. In December 2017 Swaziland’s Human
Rights Commission reported at
least 133 people had been detained in Swaziland jails without trial for more
than a year, Executive Secretary of the Human Rights Commission Linda Nxumalo
told the Sunday Observer (31 December
2017), ‘One of the key cases that the
Commission has worked on [in 2017] was one dealing with the issue of access to
justice especially for 133 inmates that have been detained for longer than 12
months without trial or sentencing at our already overcrowded correctional
facilities.’
See also
133 JAILED WITHOUT TRIAL FOR A YEAR
No comments:
Post a Comment