A 26-YEAR-OLD Zimbabwean woman and a 21-year-old police volunteer will appear at the Maun Magistrates’ Court in Botswana over a bitter fight they were recently involved in, The Voice newspaper reported on Friday.
SILAS NKALA STAFF REPORTER
Margaret Hudson and Morris Dipateletso were engaged in a bitter fight which left the woman with a swollen face and bleeding heavily from the nose and ears.
Hudson told The Voice that the volunteer beat her up for no particular reason while she was on her way to the shops.
She claimed that during the fight, she lost a passport and police have since refused to assist her because of the absence of the document.
“I was on my way to buy food and they pounced on me from behind and started beating me until I was rescued by one of them,” Hudson said. “They have the habit of harassing us just because we are Zimbabweans. I will fight for justice.”
She said she was a regular visitor to Botswana to do small jobs like laundry and plaiting hair for the past two years and it was the first time she had been brutalised by the police. However, Maun Police Station’s Assistant Superintendent Boreteletse Papani said his colleague told them that a fight ensued when Hudson tried to run away from police custody.
Papani said the volunteer police officer arrested Hudson together with three other illegal immigrants and while on the way to the police station for detention, she tried to run away.
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“Our volunteer says Hudson did not have any document on her to prove that she was in the country legally, but when taking them to the police she ran away leading to a chase that ended in a fight,” Papani said.
Since the police did not know who to believe, they decided to charge both parties with affray and they will appear in court once the injured woman has healed.
“She cannot talk properly because of her injuries, but we will try to look for more witnesses so that the court could have a clear picture of what transpired that day,” Papani added.
