‘I spent a month in a Shanghai prison for a crime I don't remember’
It has been eight months since Alfa Mphetsheni travelled back to South Africa after spending a month in a Shanghai detention centre.
He was studying at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou at the time of his arrest.
The 25-year-old was reported missing by family and friends in January after they failed to hold of him.
What followed was a desperate search for answers by his family in South Africa, begging the government to intervene and help them find their son.
Now a free man again, Mphentsheni has told Jacaranda FM News that the media attention put pressure to act on both the Chinese and South African authorities.
Mphentsheni says he does not remember what happened to him on January 15th, he only remembers being drunk and subsequently waking up in a Shanghai detention centre.
He was informed that he had assaulted a police officer and was shown a picture of a man with bruises.
But he still maintains that he does not remember committing any crime.
When he was eventually released, Mphentsheni says, his parents were told by authorities that the injuries he allegedly inflicted on the officer were worse than he was originally shown by the Chinese.
All of this means Mphentsheni remains in the dark as to what exactly happened that night, if the Chinese authorities were telling the truth or whether he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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