Ololade Adeyanju/
A Nigerian migrant, Justin Ejimkonye, has dragged the South African government to court for the violations of his rights and other abuses.
Ejimkonye is pursuing a civil claim for damages running into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He is suing the local government for 2.5 million rand in damages for personal injury and the Home Affairs ministry for two million rand for illegal detention, his lawyers say.
He also hopes his civil suit can help reinstate his visa.
In 2010 police in Johannesburg shot Ejimkonye in the leg for reasons that still remain unclear.
Thereafter, it took the police 18 months to charge him with any crime.
When they eventually charged him with possession of cannabis, a public prosecutor decided not to pursue the case for lack of evidence.
Ejimkonye claims the police shot him because he refused to pay them bribes.
Similar claims of police corruption are echoed by hundreds of immigrants in South Africa. But most are resigned to paying out so they can stay in the country.
He says law enforcement and immigration officials have continued to brutalise and wrongfully detain him, despite the fact that a high court has twice ordered the police to set him free.
“I still think every day they will come for me,” said Ejimkonye, 31.
“I’m fighting for my life.”
His case has been filed at the Johannesburg high court and is due to be heard in August.
The case is seen as a fresh challenge to the misrule and abuse that even the government sees in the immigration system.
“This is an important case and the evidence is extensive and conclusive,” Bulelani Mzamo, Ejimkonye’s attorney told Reuters. “A lot of people in authority are in deep trouble.”
National police declined to comment on the case; the police investigatory body said it had not been informed about it.
Also when informed of the case, Mayihlome Tshwete, a spokesman for Home Affairs, said he would look into it.
According to court documents relating to the case, Ejimkonye says he arrived in South Africa in October 2005 and was issued with various permits until 2007, when he married a South African, which entitled him to stay permanently on a spousal visa.
One day, he says, police stopped him as he was driving his Toyota truck. They demanded 900 rand ($70), which he refused to pay.
The police impounded his vehicle and charged him a fine to recover it.
A few weeks later, on February 25, the same police officers stopped him again.
Ejimkonye says he told them he would not pay any bribes.
At that, he says, police officer, John Kichener Johnstone, removed his police issue Beretta revolver from its holster and fired a 9 millimetre round into the back of Ejimkonye’s leg.
The Germiston police station did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment, or to contact Johnstone.
Savage Jooste and Adams, the law firm representing the local government and Johnstone, also declined to comment.
Ejimkonye’s lawyers said the law firm has submitted a defence in case
South African police spokesman, Hangwani Mulaudzi, said questions about Ejimkonye’s case against the police would be dealt with by the internal Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID).
The IPID spokesman said it would not have looked into it automatically because in 2010 it was “not obligated to investigate cases of shooting unless the shooting resulted in a death.”
Tshwete, the spokesman for the home affairs ministry, could not comment on Ejimkonye’s case but said there were some “rotten apples” in the police and home affairs ministry.
“We are not saying all police and home affairs officers are saints.”
Since the initial encounter with the police, Ejimkonye said he had faced more intimidation and physical attacks.
On October 14, 2013, according to documents submitted by Ejimkonye’s lawyers, Johnstone and colleagues raided the Nigerian’s home in the middle of the night and took him to the police station, where he was kept for 36 days.
A month into his detention, an immigration officer, Boitumelo Mokobi, revoked his visa, saying it had been illegally obtained.
With his visa revoked, Ejimkonye became an illegal immigrant. The immigration authority sent him to Lindela, the detention centre in Johannesburg.
There he spent the next six months, which was well beyond the maximum declared by law, court documents further show.
In April 2014, Judge Segopotje Mphahlele of the South Gauteng High Court ordered his release.
The judge ruled that the police and the government had “dismally failed to comply with the applicable requirements of the Immigration Act” and Ejimkonye had been unlawfully detained.
But on May 27, 2014, Ejimkonye says, Johnstone and his crew broke into his home, assaulted him and threw him into the boot of a car.
They took him to another police station where, a June 2014 court ruling says, he was held on charges of being an illegal immigrant.
Again, his lawyer applied to the high court, which ordered his release. Judge Mphahlele found this second arrest and detention had also been unlawful, and ordered that police should not approach Ejimkonye until his immigration situation was clarified.
For now, Ejimkonye has gone into hiding.
“The police and immigration officials always think they will get away with it,” said Mzamo. “With Ejimkonye’s case, we want to send a clear message that it’s not business as usual.”
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