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South Africa's elite `Scorpions' police unit to be dissolved

An elite South African graft-busting unit is to be dissolved, the safety and security minister said on Tuesday in the latest episode in a struggle between the country's crime fighting agencies.

The unit, known as the Scorpions, was the investigating arm of the national prosecuting authority, and police had seen it as invading their turf.

CASES

The unit has been behind some high-profile cases including the prosecution of national police commissioner Jackie Selebi, who has temporarily stepped down, and the new leader of the African National Congress (ANC), Jacob Zuma.

"The Scorpions will be dissolved and the organized crime unit of the police will be phased out and a new amalgamated unit created,'' minister Charles Nqakula told parliament, the South African Press Association reported.

Nqakula did not say to whom the amalgamated unit would report and when it would be formed.

The spectacle of elite investigators fighting one another has left some South Africans wondering who is fighting crime in a country with more than 50 murders each day.

MERGER

Nqakula said that the merger would combine the "best experience" of the Scorpions and the police's unit and was part of a revamp of the criminal justice system, which would have organized crime as one of its main priorities.

"We need proper measures, better human and material resources to achieve our goals in the fight against all crime," he said.

The ANC decided at its December congress, which resoundingly elected Zuma over South African President Thabo Mbeki, that the unit would be dissolved by June.

ACCUSATIONS

The ANC claims that the unit has been exploited by the president to settle political scores and has accused prosecutors of using "Hollywood style" tactics against Zuma, who will be standing trial in August on charges of fraud, money laundering, corruption as well as racketeering.

Nqakula's announcement was met by outrage from opposition parties who see the move to dissolve the unit as an attempt by the ANC to assert its control over parliament -- and Mbeki.

"This announcement once again shows that the country is now run, not by parliament, but by those few in Luthuli House [ANC headquarters]," Democratic Alliance spokeswoman and legislator Dianne Kohler Barnard said.
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