Maputo, Mozambique — South African police Commissioner Jackie Selebi Wednesday dismissed claims that South African policemen threw 14 Mozambican illegal migrants off a moving train last Friday.

Selebi was reacting to a story broadcast on Mozambican Radio alleging that the illegal migrants, who were being deported back to Mozambique, were thrown off the train at high speed.

The radio had quoted some of the deportees who disembarked from the train at the border post of Ressano Garcia.

Selebi said that during the journey the police did two hourly checks of all the passengers on board, turning over all 1,460 migrants on arrival in Ressano Garcia.

"The police on board the train performed their tasks admirably, and did a hundred per cent delivery of all the deportees to the Mozambican authorities," the police chief affirmed in his disclaimer, denying 14 passengers were hurled off, let alone died.