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Eswatini Correctional Services refutes claims that SACP member Amos Mbedzi was denied medical treatment

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The Eswatini Correctional Services has released a statement after allegations that South African Communist Party (SACP) member and anti-apartheid activist, Amos Mbedzi, was denied medical treatment when he was in prison in that country.

Speaking at Mbedzi’s funeral at Makonde outside Thohoyandou in Limpopo on Sunday, PUDEMO Spokesperson Lucky Lukhele and the SACP’s First Deputy Secretary Solly Mapaila, said Mbedzi was not given medical attention when he suffered a stroke.

Mbedzi spent 14 years in prison in eSwatini before he was transferred to South Africa two months ago.

In an unsigned statement, Correctional Services Spokesperson Gugulethu Dlamini says the allegations are unfounded and malicious.

Mbedzi joined Umkhonto weSizwe in 1988 when he was a student at the University of Venda.

In 1989, he left the country to go to Uganda for military training. He returned in 1993 and was integrated into the South African Defence Force but resigned in 1996 to focus on his work in the South African Communist Party.

Mbedzi was arrested in Eswatini in September 2008 and sentenced to 85 years in prison in 2011.

This after he was convicted of the murder of his accomplices, terrorism and unlawful possession of explosives and contravening the Immigration Act of Eswatini.

Mbedzi died last week Tuesday at a Polokwane Hospital after the Eswatini government transferred him to South Africa in March, to complete his sentence because he was terminally ill.

The SACP says King Mswati of Eswatini must be held accountable.

Solly Mapaila says: “This was one of our finest revolutionaries, comrade Amos Mbedzi. He was killed by the despotic Swazi government, and especially by its leader King Mswati III. And we blame them, the Swazi government for denying him healthcare and inflicting assault on his body and torturing him.”

Mapaila explains in the video below: 

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