Pretoria – While several police officers appeared in two separate court cases in the country on Monday following incidents of police brutality, a Limpopo man claimed R1.7 million from the minister of police after he was allegedly manhandled by officers.

Marthinus Christoffel Vorster, 23, of Phalaborwa, said in papers before the Pretoria High Court that on April 12, 2010, he was arrested by police and detained for questioning.

Vorster said he was not informed of his constitutional rights, was not presented with a warrant for arrest, nor was he told at the time what the charges against him were.

He was simply taken to the offices of the SAPS in Phalaborwa. There he waited for three hours in an office, before being taken in a police van to the offices of the Hawks in Polokwane, Vorster said.

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