Sunday Times statement on arrested reporter

A member of the Sunday Times staff, Mzilikazi wa Afrika, was arrested this morning. We have assigned lawyers to represent him and we are trying to establish what the charges against him are and where he is being held, so far without any success (see update).

Our lawyers have been unable to get a clear answer from the police on either of these two questions.

I am deeply concerned at the fact that a journalist can be arrested and held at an undisclosed location in a country where the rule of law ought to apply.

He was arrested by a large number of policemen in an operation which was clearly designed to intimidate and I can only conclude that this was the true motive for what took place today.

Mzilikazi was one of the authors of the story which we published on Sunday about the rental of new police headquarters at the cost of R500m without following the usual tender proceedings. I hope, for the sake of our country, that he was not arrested on spurious charges in order to punish him for what he wrote.

We are doing everything in our power to have him released and that we are doing all that we can to assure his well being.

Statement issued by the Sunday Times, August 4 2010

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