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 The SA Human Rights Commission has demanded that disciplinary action be taken against the head of Westville Prison, Bheki Mabanga.

This is after Mabanga said last week that eight dangerous awaiting trial prisoners managed to escape from the prison after the Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) had ordered that the electric fence be switched off. 

Umzinto serial murder accused Thozamile Taki was the ninth prisoner to climb down the rope made from bedsheets, which snapped. He dropped about four storeys, breaking his pelvis.

Mabanga told the Daily News last week that the SAHRC had told prison officials they were violating human rights as the fence could be deadly.

The eight escapees, who are still on the run, had cut through steel doors and the grille gates, before using the rope to escape from the seventh floor at the prison's Medium A section. 

Spokesperson for the commission, Vincent Moaga, accused Mabanga of making false statements to the media.

"Following the publishing of the story, the commission took up the matter with ZK Monama, (Correctional Services) Durban Area Commissioner, who denied that Westville Prison has ever received such instruction from the SAHRC," he said.

Moaga said in a letter to the SAHRC that Monama had apologised for Mabanga's statements.

"The SAHRC views Mabanga's actions as very irresponsible and would like to assure members of the public that it would never... make recommendations that would compromise the constitutionally enshrined rights of South Africans." 

Moaga said while the SAHRC acknowledged Monama's apology, it was insufficient and that more needed to be done to hold Mabanga to account. 

Taki's cries of pain after he hit the concrete when the rope snapped alerted prison guards to the escape, but by then the other prisoners were long gone. 

Some fled in an awaiting BMW.

Nokuthula Zikhali, spokesperson for the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Correctional Services, said an investigation into the circumstances of the escape was being conducted.

Spokesperson for the national Department of Correctional Services, Manelisi Wolela, said they were also investigating the escapes and considered them a very serious matter. Last week's escape is just the latest in a series of jail breaks at Westville prison.

In May 2004, Westville Prison was the scene of one of the biggest escapes in the country's history when 46 prisoners escaped. 

The prisoners had returned from Pinetown Magistrate's Court and were being taken back to their cells when eight knife-wielding men overpowered a prison warden and police officer. 

The men escaped in a prison vehicle, smashing through a boom on their way out.

OCONUS SOURCE