Police Deny False Claims in Custody Death; Misinformation Alert Issued

South African police have pushed back against what they describe as deliberate misinformation spreading across social media about the death of a Nigerian national in their custody, insisting the claims are baseless and designed to mislead the public.

The incident began on June 28, 2026, when officers from the South African Police Service Tshwane Drugs team arrested a Nigerian national at an apartment in the Sunnyside policing precinct, acting on intelligence information. The suspect was taken into custody on suspicion of drug possession and handcuffed as part of standard procedure. During transport, he collapsed. Police at the scene immediately called for medical assistance, but paramedics who arrived declared him dead.

That death in custody triggered an automatic legal obligation. The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), the independent body mandated to scrutinize police conduct, was notified without delay, as protocol requires.

Two separate cases followed. An inquest case was opened to examine the circumstances of the death. A second case, related to drug possession, was also registered. Drugs recovered at the scene were documented and stored in the SAPS 13 store as evidence.

The investigation has drawn in multiple parties. Both a SAPS detective and an IPID investigator attended the postmortem examination. Following that examination, it was determined that police would lead the death inquiry, pending the postmortem results. That division of responsibility is standard practice when someone dies in custody.

Meanwhile, the SAPS statement issued on Tuesday turned directly to the social media claims circulating about the incident. The police service rejected, in explicit terms, any suggestion linking the death to anti-illegal immigrant protests that have taken place in South Africa. The service called that connection entirely without foundation and characterized it as a deliberate attempt to exploit the incident for purposes unrelated to the facts.

Deaths in police custody are, by their nature, sensitive. They demand careful investigation, institutional accountability, and clear public communication. The involvement of IPID exists precisely to provide independent oversight in such cases, ensuring that neither the facts nor the public’s understanding of them are shaped solely by the police themselves.

What remains open is the postmortem result. Until that analysis is complete, the precise cause of death has not been established, and the full picture of what happened in Sunnyside on June 28 is still forming.