Deaths in police custody rose to 912 in the past year, the Independent Complaints Directorate said on Friday.

But though the figure was up from 791 in 2007/8, it could not be read as a sign of an increase in police misconduct.

"The question with regard to the trend that the police are behaving worse, I don't think that is the case," said Tommy Tshabalala, the directorate's chief director of investigations.

He was speaking at a press briefing after the tabling in Parliament of the ICD's 2008/9 report.

According to the report, the number of complaints the ICD received against police in the past year rose by five percent to 6119.

"When considering the cases carried over from the previous financial year, the ICD had a workload of 11 193 cases to deal with," the directorate's head, Francois Beukman, said at the briefing.

"Of this the ICD managed to complete 55 percent (6125 cases)."

From the 6125 completed cases, 723 recommendations were made to the national prosecuting authority in respect of criminal conduct.

Some 1212 recommendations were made to the SA Police Services management in respect of misconduct.

According to the report 12 "innocent bystanders" were killed by the police in 2008/9, while another 20 were killed during escape attempts by suspects.

Twenty-nine people died in police custody "due to the negligent handling of a firearm".

The report said 80 suspects had hung themselves in police custody, 14 of them using strips of blanket, ten using shoes laces, four using t-shirts and one using underwear.

Another 16 suspects shot themselves, four jumped in front of moving vehicles, two poisoned themselves, one fell into a drain hole and another jumped off a cliff.

Beukman said the ICD was hamstrung by legislation.

The law stated that there was no legal duty on the police to comply with its recommendations or to report back, he said.

"If we go forward in a new structure, there will have to be improvement," he said.