Afrikaner paraplegic raped in Welkom SAPS-cell: can’t afford ARV-medicines

By Annie Kalahari | February 9, 2012 at 10:11 pm | One comment | South Africa | Tags: Afrikaner, AIDS, ARV, paraplegic, raped, SAPS Welkom police cells, Thys Hensen

Thys Henzen, 43, paraplegic, raped by black detainee in Welkom police cells: beaten by cops: night of hell after rough arrest by SAPS.

2012-02-08 Volksblad journalist Tom de Wet tdeWet@volksblad.com interviewed the heart-broken Thys Henzen, 43, a paraplegic man who lives in a wheelchair and who told the journalist about his night of hell in a Welkom police cell when he was helpless – and raped.
“I feel dirty, abused, humiliated. What does a man do with the rest of his life after such an ordeal?” he asked with eyes brimming with tears.
His ordeal started on 29 January 2012: he was roughly arrested inside his home, brutally assaulted, thrown into the police vehicle despite his physical frailty – and a few hours lawter
the Afrikaner man was raped with considerable violence in the police cells. He has been examined and treated and given antiretroviral medicine to prevent AIDS-transfer.
He said it all started when a man whom the impoverished Afrikaner shares his home with, invited friends over for a rowdy party.
Sometime during that night, Mr Henzen cut his hand when he was seated in his wheelchair and bumped against a railing with a glass in his hand.
He was so shocked by the pain that his hand voluntary pushed upwards clutching the broken glass — and accidentially stabbed the arm of a man standing right night to him.
This man got angered by the paraplegic man’s mistake and phoned the police – lodging a complaint of assault.
The police arrived, sprayed pepperspray in his mouth, he was ripped out of his wheelchair
and dragged to the front-garden, where the badly disabled, frail Afrikaner was thrown into a police-van. They threw his wheel-chair in with him – so they knew he was disabled…
He was driven around for quite a while in it: they even stopped alongside a darkened road to beat him some more in the back of the van and emptied out three cans of tear-gas on his face.
Then they threw him in the Welkom police cells with harnened black criminals. at 3:30 one of the detainees held him down with a dirty blanket across his mouth while
a second man raped him. The next morning the traumatised Afrikaner man was found by SAPS station-commissioner brig. Mzondi Mojafi and col. Ben van Wyk.
They arranged to take him with a special vehicle to the court-room, asking for a postponement of his arraignment on unknown charges while they rushed him to hospital.
Meanwhile, the party-goer whose hands he’d stabbed accidentially, has withdrawn the charge.
Henzen is terrified: he thought about it for a week, thinking about whether he should tell his story to the news media and submit a charge against the SAPS.
“I am terrified of the police taking vengeance against me. I am totally helpless to defend myself if anything should happen.
“And then this humiliation,’ he said.
Volksblad helped Henzen get in touch with the police directorate dealing with sexual crimes – and he lodged a charge there.
The newspaper also arranged trauma-treatment and psychological councilling.
Mr Hensen became paraplegic seven years ago after he was injured in a hit-and-ru

n traffic crime in Sasolburg.