Cape Town businessman Mohamed Salim Dawjee has admitted giving Western Cape police chief Arno Lamoer R20,000 to help him pay off a loan, the Sunday Times reported.
"We grew up together. Our children grew up together. Of course I helped him," Dawjee told the newspaper.
The amount apparently went towards helping Lamoer pay off a loan he had taken out to fund his daughter's wedding.
Dawjee told the newspaper he was innocent of any criminal activity in terms of his relationship with Lamoer or other police officials.
"I'm an innocent man getting destroyed in the middle."
The Sunday Times reported that Dawjee was at the centre of allegations that he was in a corrupt relationship with certain police officials.
Dawjee told the paper he had thought of killing himself after the allegations emerged.
"My friend Lieutenant-General Lamoer said: 'Don't kill yourself, my friend, because then the newspaper would have won." Lamoer is the police official, it is alleged, whom national commissioner Riah Phiyega tipped off about an investigation against him by crime intelligence.
According to reports, it is claimed that Phiyega told Lamoer on three occasions that she was aware he was under investigation.
An Independent Police Investigative Directorate probe into Phiyega has since begun.
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