The Hawks are investigating whether a damning video showing assault and harassment of a senior South African Revenue Service (SARS) official who received key documents that could damage the state’s investigation into Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was staged. Cellphone footage recorded by SARS’s deputy director of law administration, Vlok Symington, of himself being assaulted and held hostage by the commander of the South African Police Service (SAPS) crimes against the state unit, Brig Nyameka Xaba, and SARS commissioner Tom Moyane’s bodyguard came to light on Thursday. The footage shows the police, who initially did not realise Symington had the documents, forcibly taking printed e-mails off him in a scuffle in the SARS boardroom. The Hawks investigation into the video follows an urgent court application by the Helen Suzman Foundation to get the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA’s) case against Gordhan stopped. The organisation claims the NPA’s prosecution is politically driv...
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