Cape Town – Former health minister Zweli Mkhize has reportedly said he is shocked that his name was dragged into the case of six men arrested in connection with the murder of Gauteng health official Babita Deokaran.
Mkhize was responding to media reports which referred to one of the men as having implicated him in Deokaran’s murder.
Deokaran, who was a key whistle-blower in an investigation into dodgy personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts in Gauteng, was shot-dead outside her home after dropping off her child at school on August 23.
In a report by Daily Maverick, one of the accused, Phakamani Hadebe, 29, claimed that after his arrest on August 26, he was severely assaulted by investigators. He alleged that police tied a plastic bag around his head and nearly suffocated him.
“I pleaded that I did not know the man and in response I was punched hard and threatened. Then I falsely admitted it was Mr (sic) Mkhize,” the report quoted Hadebe as saying.
ALSO READ: Zweli Mkhize ‘served the nation well’, says Cyril Ramaphosa despite damning SIU report
According to News24, Hadebe had distanced himself from the “false confession”, saying it was made under duress.
“I have never met the [former] Health Minister Mkhize or any brother of his. I would not recognise him if I saw him in front of me,” the report quoted Hadebe as saying in his bail affidavit.
In denying any involvement on his part, Mkhize said: “It should be remembered that these alleged procurement irregularities took place at a provincial level, far away from the national sphere of government where he was deployed as a national Minister of Health,” the Citizen reported.
The former minister had instructed his lawyers to write to the Independent Police Independent Directorate (IPID) to investigate “the circumstances surrounding the extraction and acceptance into evidence of the reported confession”.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Pictures: Twitter/@RantsSouth
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Compiled by Reginald Nhlapo
