11 SANDF soldiers guilty of committing assault while on peacekeeping mission
4 December 2018
The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has found 11 of its members guilty of assaulting a 17-year old Congolese citizen in his country.
In a "historic and ground-breaking trial" the defence force has, for the first time, used the Prevention of Combating and Torture of Persons Act to charge 16 of its members who were deployed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as part of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) of Operation Mistral.
Although they were not convicted in terms of the act, the case paved the way for the use of the act in the future, the SANDF said.
The assault took place on January 30 this year, in Mbuji-Mayi in the Kasai Oriental province.