A brave civil servant blows the whistle

THE STORY OF A SARS 'ROGUE UNIT' became entrenched in the public mind following a succession of sensational reports of illegal spook operations published by the Sunday Times. The unit, the reports claimed, had spied on President Jacob Zuma, run a brothel and entered into illegal tax settlements.

In a plot of Machiavellian proportions, Johann van Loggerenberg, who headed the elite crime-busting unit, and nearly the entire top management were forced to quit SARS. Van Loggerenberg's select team of investigators,...