NATIONAL NEWS - A Mamelodi East man accused of robbing 18 foreign students and two professors visiting a school recently has claimed the police assaulted him, Rekord East reports.

The man (30) appeared briefly in the Mamelodi magistrate’s court this week for the robbery at Viva Foundation private school, Mamelodi East, on May 13.

According to an affidavit he deposed on 23 May, the man alleged that the investigating officer had taken him from the Mamelodi East police station to identify his accomplices.

He claims that in the police van, he had been assaulted by three uniformed police officers wearing balaclavas.

He claimed when he requested to be taken to the clinic after the assault, they had refused.

The accused also claimed that the investigating officer was not aware of the incident and that he was not allowed visitors or contact with the outside world.

The students and professors from the US were on an outreach visit to the school in Lusaka, Mamelodi East, when they were robbed of their personal belongings, including laptops, plane tickets, cameras, bags, passports, cellphones and US currency by five men who fled in a Toyota Quantum.

The robbers were also alleged to have pistol-whipped a teacher, while a local was struck by a stray bullet in the hand as the men fired randomly as they fled the scene.

Their getaway vehicle was later found abandoned at a car wash in Mamelodi East phase 3.

The man was arrested in Pienaarspoort informal settlement, far east of Mamelodi on 16 May.

Magistrate Seckle Marupeng postponed the case to 16 July for further investigations after the man’s lawyer had abandoned the man’s bail application. The man faces charges of business robbery, attempted murder and assault.

Men aged 24 and 39, arrested at the weekend in connection with the robbery, were later released when they could not be linked to the robbery.

An identification parade has been delayed because some of the victims were currently in Cape Town.

Source: Caxton publication, Alberton Record.