Paul O’Sullivan’s assistant arrested by police – reports
She was apparently driven around for hours in the back of a police van without her family knowing her whereabouts.
Paul O’Sullivan addresses members of the media as he prepares to hand over a pledge to not deal in counterfeit goods in an attempt to root out the illegal trade of fake products to South African, Somali and Ethiopian informal shop owners and community leaders under the name “Township Business Development South Africa”. Picture: Alaister Russell
Civil rights organisation AfriForum on Saturday reportedly confirmed that an attorney and employee for private investigator Paul O’Sullivan was being detained by police.
AfriForum said the South African police service (Saps) hasn’t produced to them an arrest warrant for Sarah-Jane Trent, who was taken by officers on Friday afternoon at O’Sullivan’s offices.
According to reports, she was apparently driven around for hours in the back of a police van and spent over an hour parked at a petrol station before being taken to a police station.
AfriForum’s legal representative‚ Willie Spies, said details of Trent’s arrest were still unclear and initially she could not be located for more than three hours after her arrest.
It was only on Saturday that her family and friends learnt that she was being detained at the Kameeldrift Police Station, East of Pretoria.
“My colleague Louis Taljaard has since worked uninterruptedly to arrange bail‚ as the SAPS is complicating the matter. Furthermore‚ no arrest warrant has been shown to him‚” Spies told TimesLIVE.
News24 reports that she was arrested allegedly on charges of impersonating an Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) officer.
Trent and O’Sullivan were working with Ipid investigators on a corruption and defeating the ends of justice investigation into acting Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane.
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