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| Marikana: South Africa police 'lied over mine shootings' | |
| (34 minutes later) | |
| South African police lied about the Marikana shootings last year, in which 34 striking miners were killed, a commission of inquiry has said. | |
| Police falsified or withheld documents, and gave false accounts of events, it said. | |
| The police shooting of the miners at the Lonmin-owned platinum mine in August 2012 shocked the nation. | |
| The police said they were acting in self-defence, days after two officers had been hacked to death by protesters. | |
| The commission was appointed by President Jacob Zuma to investigate the deaths of the 34 miners - the most deadly police action since the end of white minority rule in 1994. | |
| Its statement comes just 10 days after gaining access to police computer hard drives and previously unseen police documents. | |
| "We have obtained documents which the SAPS [South African Police Services] previously said were not in existence... | |
| "We have obtained documents which in our opinion demonstrate that the [police] version of the events at Marikana... is in material respects not the truth," the commission said. | |
| It said the material which had come to light had "serious consequences" for its future work. | |
| The hearing was adjourned until Wednesday, while the commission reviewed the "thousands of pages" of documents, and sought to obtain access to additional hard drives and electronic records. |