18/02/2004 15:13 - (SA)

Pretoria - A convicted rapist recounted on Wednesday how he was repeatedly violated in the Pretoria Central Prison.

"I need assistance as I am now sick and these prisoners who sodomised me are all released," John Ngwako said in an affidavit presented in Pretoria to the Jali Commission of Inquiry into prison maladministration.

In the document, Ngwako claimed he was sodomised by three fellow inmates one after the other in October 2002. This happened in a cell on one of his assailants' beds.

"I was scared as I saw they were going to kill me," he said.

He reported the matter to prison authorities, and the three men were arrested. He heard last July that the case was thrown out of court.

"I do not know why, as I didn't testify against them."

Ngwako claimed he was not given medical treatment and was kept in an isolation cell for four months after the alleged rapes.

"Now I am sick, I have unknown diseases," the affidavit states.

"I was informed by the doctor not to sit in the sun as I am allergic to it."

Ngwako was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in April 2001 for rape.

Another witness before the commission, Jacob Maartens, was accused on Wednesday of lying in testimony about corrupt warders.