Hawks call on news agency to apologise for report
Johannesburg – The Hawks have condemned a national news report that implicated one of its high ranking officers in a burglary at the Pretoria office of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), a spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Eyewitness News reported that the offices were burgled and two laptops were stolen. They said the laptops belonged to prosecutors that were handling the case in which controversial Hawks Brigadier Nyameka Xaba is a suspect.
The report highlighted that Xaba and several other Hawks officials are accused of taking South African Revenue Services (SARS) employee Vlok Symington hostage at his workplace last year.
It also said that Xaba met with the two advocates handling the Symington case.
“For the record, Brigadier Xaba who is currently on leave is not the investigator into the Symington matter and has never met the prosecutor handling the case. Brigadier Xaba and his team members recently honoured an invitation from a prosecutor at the NPA offices to deliberate on an unrelated case as opposed to what Eyewitness News has reported,” Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said in a statement.