Angry SA justice minister demands answers on 'death handovers' to Zim

South African Justice Minister Jeff Radebe is demanding answers on the Hawks conducting illegal "renditions" of people from South Africa to Zimbabwe.

And, in a move that puts him on a collision course with cabinet colleague and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, he said the renditions "fly in the face of our [SA's] constitution and its values".

Radebe's comments follow an exposé in the Sunday Times on how top investigators from the elite crime-fighting unit were fingered in sending several Zimbabwean nationals to their deaths in Zimbabwe. Radebe is demanding answers from the justice cluster to "map a way forward".

Radebe said the rendition claims were "very worrying", especially considering the allegations "were levelled not only against organs of state, but one that is responsible for law enforcement and security".

This week more cases surfaced, in which the Hawks and members of the SA National Defence Force were accused of arresting people and handing them over to Zimbabwean police - and where they were either murdered or tortured. Their actions flout the Immigration Act and breach a government moratorium on deportations to Zimbabwe as well as the UN Convention Against Torture, which South Africa ratified in 1998.

Radebe's comments are in opposition to those of Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, who on Friday told the Sunday Times "there is nothing in front of [me ]" to warrant an investigation. He said the claims of rendition involving the Hawks were "baseless and imaginative".

This is despite a paper trail, published by the Sunday Times, confirming that a number of individuals were arrested as "illegal immigrants" by the Hawks and taken through the Beitbridge border, where they were handed over to Zimbabwean police. At the time Hawks boss General Anwa Dramat confirmed they had "deported" three individuals - Witness Ndeya, Gordon Dube and Pritchard Tshuma - but said this was done "properly".

Ndeya died of "multiple gun shot wounds" on November 20 - two weeks after his arrest in South Africa - while in police custody in Bulawayo, according to his death certificate. Tshuma and Dube are believed to have met a similar fate.

Now more details of a number of other cases have emerged. In one, John Nyoni, 33, was arrested on January 26 by the Hawks and deported . In another case, Gift Nhadzi - a former organiser of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - detailed how he was arrested by members of the SANDF, who then handed him over to Zimbabwean police officers in plain clothes. He was then tortured in front of villagers.

"While they were torturing me they said: 'This is how a sell-out and a terrorist is treated'," he said. "My wife was four months pregnant. They said they wanted to skin her alive because there is a sellout in her womb." Nhadzi said after begging for mercy, they beat her belly, and she then suffered a miscarriage. Nhadzi has since fled back to SA.