Kidnapped businessman: ‘I told kidnappers I’m the manager not the owner’
|Published
TORTURED: The 41-year-old businessman’s injuries. Pictures: Brendan Magaar/African News Agency (ANA)
A businessman who was kidnapped in broad daylight in Mitchells Plain claims the reason he survived was because he convinced his kidnappers that he was not a business owner, but a manager.
“I told them that the owner is in Bangladesh, they were angry as I kept saying I am the manager,” he said.
The 41-year-old was beaten up and tortured for two weeks following his kidnapping in Wespoort Road on August 26.
During an interview with the Weekend Argus, he asked that his name and face not be published.
“They beat me so much, I didn’t even have time to think straight. I said if they want to kill me, they must do it, I was tired of all the beating.”
He said while driving home from work he came across a roadblock, which he believed was fake, and was approached by a man dressed in a traffic cop uniform.
“I immediately knew something was wrong when he said the licence disc of my vehicle is expired, but he did nothing,” he explained.
He said the kidnappers surrounded his car, and he tried to put up a fight to alert passers-by.
One person recorded the kidnapping which went viral on social media.
He said he left his one shoe behind, hoping cops would use sniffer dogs to trace him.
He was forced to the floor of the car, his head covered with a cap and driven to a hokkie where he was tortured for two weeks.
“I was kept blind-folded and my one eye became infected.”
He said he survived on water and refused to drink the “sour milk” the kidnappers tried to give him.
“They never left me alone and would leave the shack when their big boss arrived.”
On Friday, September 9, the businessman was bundled into a car and dumped along Swartklip Road near Khayelitsha Cemetery, from where he walked to a winkel in Lost City to ask for help.
Weekend Argus