The family of the Mitchells Plain police officer accused of beating up his wife says he is “not the monster he is portrayed to be”, but was defending himself.
Aashiq Hartzenberg, 32, was arrested on Tuesday on a charge of assault after his wife called the police.
He had allegedly thrown her against the security gate at their Claremont home, leaving her face swollen and bloody and with a cut on her right arm.
According to the wife’s family, who asked to remain anonymous, Hartzenberg had been abusing his wife but she never reported it because she was trying to protect his reputation.
But Hartzenberg’s sister, 21, from Lentegeur, yesterday said the couple had always had a “volatile” relationship and her brother was actually the victim of domestic abuse.
“My mother and I lived with them for a while and his wife was always verbally abusive towards him, my mother and me. I could not understand it, until I realised she did not want us there,” the sister says.
“She put my mom and me out on the street when I was just 19. We had nowhere to go.
“She is a cruel woman and my brother has been trying to get away from her. He left her, not the other way around.
“She begged him to come back and said she would never let him go.”
She says on the night of the incident, Hartzenberg sent their mother a message to say his wife “was performing with him again”.
“She had come after him with a broom and hit him. He had tried to take it from her and when he pulled her, her hand got hurt,” the sister says.
“She was attacking him, he pushed her and she went into the bars. He just defended himself against her.”
She says they are very worried about her brother, who is currently in Pollsmoor Prison.
“We do not know about these kinds of things. He is a police officer because he wants to serve and protect, but he protected himself from her, and now he is the monster. The truth will come out,” she adds.
The Daily Voice contacted Hartzenberg’s wife who said she had “no comment”.
Hartzenberg will appear in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court on Thursday for his bail application.