Tape of Police Attack on Inmates Roils S. Africa

The nation reacted with horror Wednesday to a videotape aired on state television showing black prisoners being savaged by police dogs and beaten by white officers during what was described as a training exercise.

“Live Bait” screamed the headline in the Citizen newspaper over a photograph of a police dog tearing into a young black man as an officer kicked him in the stomach.

National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi ordered the immediate arrest of the six officers early Tuesday, after the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corp. showed officials what they planned to broadcast that night.

Karen Mckenzie, head of the Independent Complaints Directorate, a police watchdog group, told reporters that canine units throughout South Africa will be investigated.

President Thabo Mbeki’s office said the president had seen the footage and was shocked.

“The president watched the video and he was horrified,” spokesman Nazeem Mahatey said.

Selebi said in a statement that white officers who carried out racist acts six years after the end of white apartheid rule would be “flushed out and imprisoned.”

The video, made in 1998, showed three black men being driven to a field behind a gold mine dump where, for about an hour, they were repeatedly savaged by four dogs while they screamed and begged for mercy. The TV report said the men were possibly illegal immigrants.

The police officers, who beat the victims when they tried to fend off the dogs, laughed and cheered throughout the assault. One told the camera, “This is a training exercise.”

Parliamentary opposition leader Tony Leon said the footage “was horrifying and left a sense of shock among all reasonable South Africans. The scenes, although current, belong to the heyday of apartheid.”

A police spokeswoman said the arrested officers will probably appear in court today on charges of attempted murder and assault.