S.A. police dogs set on migrants

PRETORIA, South Africa -- South African police often set their dogs on illegal black immigrants as part of training, former police dog handlers told a court.

The dog handlers were giving evidence before sentence was passed on four South African policemen who were captured on videotape ordering their dogs to attack three Mozambicans.

"In all my years of being a policeman, it was in the back of the minds of dog handlers that what we were doing was wrong and one day someone would get caught out," instructor Johannes Brits told the court.

Brits, a former member of a Johannesburg dog unit, was giving evidence in mitigation for the four men.

They had pleaded guilty to setting their dogs on the Mozambican immigrants in January 1998. They are to be sentenced on Monday.

"It was generally known among dog handlers that this method was used, even the senior officers knew of it because they were dog handlers once," Johannes Niemand, another former dog handler, told the Pretoria court.

The video showed the policemen laughing as the Mozambicans pleaded for mercy during the attack in a field near Johannesburg,.

The footage shocked South Africa when it was shown on SABC state TV last year.

Robert Henzen, 32, Eugene Truter, 28, Jacobus Smith, 31 and Lodewyk Koch, 32, have pleaded guilty to three charges of assault with intent to do bodily harm. Henzen and Truter have also admitted attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

Two other officers, Nicolaas Loubser, 27, and Dino Guitto, 27, have denied the charges. They are due to stand trial on June 3.

'Prisoner tortured'

Brits gave a running commentary as the video of the attack was shown to the court on Thursday. The four policemen sat with bowed heads, one nervously chewing his nails.

The three Mozambicans, Alexandre Timane, 23, his brother Gabriel 24, and friend Sebastiao Cossa, 25, sat near the front of the court and watched the proceedings without showing any emotion.

Brits said that dog handlers would use immigrants and criminals, who were unlikely to complain, to teach dogs to move on from biting a person wearing protective clothing to mauling an unprotected suspect.

"I am ashamed to say it was accepted as the only method we knew to reach our aim ... I agree it was cowardly," he said.

Brits said policemen became used to using brutal methods and admitted once helping to torture a prisoner.

The four policemen said in court papers that the 1998 attack was an "exercise" aimed mainly at curing Guitto's dog's reluctance to bite.

But Niemand told the court the matter had been blown out of proportion. "It was a pity that the video was taken. Because of that video the whole matter has been blown out of perspective," he said.

"The only practical way to be absolutely sure the dog would bite a person was to use this method."

But Niemand later said he felt "heart-sore" when he saw the video, because "another person got hurt."

Reuters contributed to this report.