JOHANNESBURG — His hands are tied to the rear of a police van while his body lies behind it, on the ground. The van speeds off, dragging the slender man along the pavement as a onlookers shout in dismay and at least one records the scene. He is later found dead in a police cell.

It's a gut-wrenching video, made all the more disturbing by the fact that the men who carried out the abuse were uniformed South African police officers and the van was a marked police vehicle. The Daily Sun, a South African newspaper, posted the footage Thursday, and it was quickly picked up by other South African news outlets and carried on the Internet. It sparked immediate outrage.

Some of those in the crowd who watched the scene unfold in a township east of Johannesburg shouted at the police and warned that it was being videotaped. The police did not seem at all concerned as they tied Mido Macia, a 27-year-old taxi driver from neighboring Mozambique, to the back of a police vehicle, his hands behind his head, his buttocks on the ground. At least three policemen participated in the incident. Macia was found dead in a police cell late Tuesday in the Daveyton township east of Johannesburg.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the police watchdog agency, said Thursday that a murder probe is under way and that Macia suffered head and other injuries, including internal bleeding.

'What has this guy done?'
The graphic footage renewed concerns about brutality, corruption and other misconduct by a national police force whose reputation has suffered in recent years amid reports that many officers lack training. Some have been charged with committing the crimes they are supposed to prevent, including rape and murder.

"We are going to film this," several onlookers shouted in Zulu as the police tormented Macia. One bystander can be heard on the videotape shouting in Zulu: "What has this guy done?"

Daily Sun via AFP - Getty Images

South African police officers hold the legs of a taxi driver handcuffed to the back of a police van. Moments later, they dropped his legs and the van accelerated away. He was later found dead.

At first, Macia, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt, is dragged along the road by the vehicle at slow speed, the footage shows. He awkwardly tries to keep step even though he is almost horizontal above the ground. Then the van stops, two policemen pick up the legs of the taxi driver and drop them to the ground as the van picks up speed and drives off, beyond the view of the camera.

The police watchdog agency said the incident started just before 7 p.m. on Tuesday when the cab driver was allegedly obstructing traffic with his vehicle. Then, Macia allegedly assaulted a constable and took his weapon before he was overpowered, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate said in a statement.

Macia was found dead over two hours later by another policeman, according to the watchdog agency.

In a statement, the police force said National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega "strongly condemned" what happened. The statement said people are "urged to remain vigilant and continue to report all acts of crime irrespective of who is involved."

Phiyega has sought to upgrade the reputation of the South African police. Last month, Phiyega told a group of police officials the standing of the force "has been severely but not irreparably tarnished over the past several years."

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Updated at 2:33 p.m. ET: A nurse duped by a prank call made to the hospital where Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, was treated for an extreme form of morning sickness was found dead Friday morning, the hospital said in a statement.

Two Australian DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian of Sydney station 2Day FM, called the hospital earlier this week and pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles asking to be put through to the ward. They were then given an update on Kate’s health by a nurse.

The woman’s body was found at an address in Weymouth Street, London, which is around the corner from King Edward VII Hospital on Beaumont Street. Police described the circumstance of her death as "unexplained."

“It is with very deep sadness that we confirm the tragic death of a member of our nursing staff, Jacintha Saldanha,” said the statement, which was released by the hospital's public relations firm.

Radio DJs impersonate royals, get lowdown on Kate

“Jacintha has worked at the King Edward VII's Hospital for more than four years. She was an excellent nurse and well-respected and popular with all of her colleagues,” it said.

“We can confirm that Jacintha was recently the victim of a hoax call to the hospital. The hospital had been supporting her throughout this difficult time,” it added.

A statement released by Saldanha's family asks that the media respect their privacy at this difficult time.

Many took to the radio station’s Facebook page, posting strong-worded comments criticizing the DJs’ behavior.

“Wherever you sit, just beg forgiveness,” a commenter named Mel Lacey posted.

“They should be sacked for the awful way they are handling the results of this prank,” William Stead, another user, wrote on the page.

Media company Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and 2Day FM released a statement saying they "are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha from King Edward VII's Hospital and we extend our deepest sympathies to her family and all that have been affected by this situation around the world."

The statement went on to say that CEO Rhys Holleran had spoken with the two DJs, who are "deeply shocked and at this time we have agreed that they not comment about the circumstances. SCA and the hosts have decided that they will not return to their radio show until further notice out of respect for what can only be described as a tragedy."

Duke, Duchess 'deeply saddened'
A spokesman for St. James's Palace said that William, the Duke of Cambridge, and Kate were “deeply saddened” by Saldanha's death.

“Their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everybody at King Edward VII Hospital, and their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha's family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time,” the spokesman added.

John Lofthouse, chief executive at King Edward VII's Hospital, was quoted as saying in the statement that "our thoughts and deepest sympathies at this time are with her family and friends."

Duchess Kate discharged from the hospital

"Everyone is shocked by the loss of a much loved and valued colleague," he added.

Lord Glenarthur, chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital, said Saldanha was "a first-class nurse who cared diligently for hundreds of patients during her time with us."

"She will be greatly missed," he said.

The police and ambulance services said the woman, who they did not name, was dead when they arrived.

“Police were called at approximately 9:35 [a.m. local time, 4:35 a.m. ET] Friday … to reports of a woman found unconscious at an address in Weymouth Street,” a spokeswoman for London’s Metropolitan Police told NBC News.

“London Ambulance Service attended and the woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Inquiries continue to establish the circumstances of the incident,” she added.

The police spokeswoman said the death was being treated as “unexplained” until an autopsy was carried out.

Olivia Harris/Reuters

Police officers walk outside King Edward VII hospital, central London, Friday.

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A Guantanamo detainee who died Saturday was a former hunger striker who had recently been placed in a disciplinary cell after splashing a guard with a "cocktail"-- typically containing urine, a U.S. military official tells NBC News. 

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death of the detainee, whose identity and country of origin will not be released until his family is notified, said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the U.S. detention facility.

But Durand provided some new details about the detainee's death -- the ninth to occur at Guantanamo since the prison opened in early 2002 and the first since an Afghan prisoner committed suicide in May of last year.

The detainee was found unconscious in his cell in Camp 5 on Saturday afternoon and was taken to the Naval hospital at Guantanamo where efforts to revive him failed. There were no cuts on his wrist or any other obvious signs of self-inflicted wounds, Durand said.

The detainee also had no serious medical problems. He had participated in a hunger strike last spring but ended it in June and was examined as recently as Aug. 22 when he was at 95 percent of his body weight, Durand said.

He had "fairly recently" thrown the "cocktail" at a prison guard, causing him to be placed in a solitary cell at Camp 5, said Durand. 

Although the death occurred on Saturday, military officials did not announce it until Monday in order to give officials time to notify the host country and family members of the detainee. That process has not yet been completed, but officials decided to release some details Monday because of concerns that some visitors to the base-- such as defense lawyers -- would learn about it anyway, Durand said. 

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The Miami Herald reported that a pathology and mortuary team was brought to the base on Sunday to attend to the body. A Muslim imam was summoned in order to give the man Islamic rites.

The dead man’s remains will be returned home after an autopsy, the Navy said.

The detention camp was set up to hold non-American captives suspected of involvement with al-Qaida, the Taliban or other Islamic militant groups after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Of the 779 men held there, 167 remain.

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Two of the earlier deaths were from natural causes and six were designated as suicides, most of them by hanging.

NBC News staff and Reuters also contributed to this report.

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Alan Davidson / Picture Library Ltd via AP, file

Eva and Hans Kristian Rausing attend the Glamour America Fashion Show and lunch at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Britain in London on Nov. 26, 1996.

LONDON -- Multi-millionaire Hans Kristian Rausing pleaded guilty Wednesday to preventing the proper burial of his wealthy U.S.-born wife Eva, whose badly decomposed body was found in the luxury London home she shared with her husband.

A spokeswoman for Britain's judiciary told The Associated Press that Rausing, whose father made billions selling his stake in the Tetra Pak drinks-carton empire, pleaded guilty at London's Isleworth Crown Court to charges of "preventing the lawful and decent burial" of his 48-year-old wife.

She spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.

Police discovered Eva Rausing's body in early July after her husband was stopped by police after driving erratically. It was found in a fly-filled room under a pile of clothing and garbage bags which had been taped together.   

It was possible Eva Rausing died up to two months before her body was found, Isleworth Crown Court heard, according to BBC News.  A post-mortem examination established that she had drugs in her system, including cocaine.   

In a statement to the court Hans Kristian Rausing said he had been unable to confront the reality of his wife's death, the BBC added.

'Very traumatized'
He told police that he did not have "a very coherent recollection of the events leading up to and since Eva's death" but that he had never wished her any harm.

"I did not supply her with drugs. I have been very traumatized since her death," he added, according to the BBC. "I do not know what caused her death. I did not feel able to confront the reality of her death."

The judiciary spokeswoman told the AP that Hans Kristian Rausing would be sentenced later. He has been treated in a psychiatric facility in recent weeks.

His father has a net worth net worth estimated at 4.3 billion pounds ($6.7 billion) from the Tetra Pak sale.

Tragic story of addition
Hans Kristian's plea caps a tragic story of addiction and wealth.

Eva Rausing's father Tom Kemeny, a former Pepsi executive, said in a statement on July 17 that his daughter had earlier returned to the British capital to try to persuade her husband to join her in drug treatment in the U.S.

"At the time of her death her over-riding concern was for the safety of her beloved husband, for whom she interrupted her own treatment to return to London in an attempt to take him back with her to California, but tragically to no avail," he said in the statement.

The couple's struggles with addiction -- long known to their close friends and family -- became widely known in 2008 when Eva Rausing was caught trying to smuggle crack cocaine and heroin into the U.S. Embassy in London in her handbag.

Police later found more drugs, including a sizeable amount of cocaine, in a search of the couple's townhouse and the two were charged with drug possession.

Police struggle to shed light on US-born heiress' death

Prosecutors later agreed to drop the charges in exchange for formal police warnings when the couple -- who gave millions to anti-addiction charities -- admitted guilt.

Before the embassy arrest, Eva Rausing's good looks and beautiful clothes -- along with her husband and his friendly, bear-like countenance -- had made the Rausings, who had married shortly after they met in the 1980s, welcome participants on the London philanthropic scene.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Andrew Winning / Reuters file

Ian and Ellen Williams and Cerri Subbe, the mother, father and sister of British MI6 agent Gareth Williams, left Westminster Coroner's Court in London on April 23.

Gareth Williams, the British cyberspy who was found dead in a padlocked duffel bag, probably suffocated or was poisoned, a forensic pathologist testified Monday.

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Williams' body was found in the bag in the bathtub of his apartment in London in August 2010. The unusual of his death — Williams, 31, a math prodigy who worked as a code breaker for the British spy service MI6, was discovered naked and showing no signs of a struggle — has transfixed Britain as details of Williams' transvestism and sexual fantasies have emerged.

Speaking at an official inquest into Williams' death in August 2010, the pathologist, Benjamin Swift, said the precise cause of death couldn't be pinpointed because the body was badly decomposed after having been in the bag for more than a week before it was found, The Guardian reported. But he said  asphyxiation or poisoning were the "foremost contenders."

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

Other experts have testified that it was highly likely that another person, or even two, was involved in the case, citing the near-impossibility of Williams' being able to lock himself into the bag.

UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

That has spawned any number of conspiracy theories that Williams may have been assassinated by foreign agents or terrorists. But MI6 said it believed his death had nothing to do with his work or that it had covered it up.

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British spy Gareth Williams was “dead or unconscious” and was almost certainly placed in a sports bag by another person, an inquiry into his death in London was told Friday, it is reported.

Expert Peter Faulding tried to re-create the code-breaker’s bizarre death by trying to climb into a bag inside a bathtub and lock it himself 300 times. He failed every time, according to a report of the day’s inquest evidence in the Daily Telegraph.

Faulding said the task would have eluded even escapologist Harry Houdini.

UK intelligence officer: No cover-up in 'spy in the bag' case

He said he believed a third party was present, describing theories that Williams got inside the bag unaided as "unbelievable."

Video footage of Faulding attempting to re-create the death was shown to the inquest.

Police discovered the naked decomposing body of the 31-year-old spy padlocked inside a red sports bag in the bathtub of his flat in London in August 2010.

The strange circumstances surrounding Williams’ death have prompted a number of theories, and police eventually concluded he had been playing an auto-erotic sex game that went badly wrong.

Earlier this week, the inquest heard from Williams’ former landlady, who once found the spy in bed with his hands tied to the headboard wearing nothing except boxer shorts.

Faulding, a former Parachute Regiment reservist who specializes in rescuing people from confined spaces, was unable to lock himself inside an identical bag in the bath, according to a Press Association report.

"I couldn't say it's impossible, but I think even Houdini would have struggled with this one," he said, according to the PA. The expert added: "My conclusion is that Mr. Williams was either placed in the bag unconscious, or he was dead before he was in the bag."

He also raised the idea the bag was deliberately placed in the bath so “bodily fluids” could drain away.

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LONDON - There was "no evidence" to suggest that British intelligence services were part of a cover-up after one of their own was found naked and decomposing inside a locked duffel bag in his London apartment, an intelligence officer said on Thursday.

"Witness F" gave evidence to the inquest -- which are held when deaths are deemed violent or unnatural -- in the August 2010 death of MI6 officer Gareth Williams from behind a screen, BBC News reported.

MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency, is roughly equivalent to the Untied States' CIA.

The denial came on the same day that one of the code-breaker's relatives shrieked and brought proceedings to a halt while listening to details of a series of missteps that allowed for the spy to lay in his bathroom undiscovered for a week, the Telegraph reported.

UK cops close to arrest over British spy found dead in a bag?

The relatives walked out of the inquest in tears during Witness F's evidence, the BBC reported.

Their lawyer Anthony O'Toole said the agency showed a "total disregard for Gareth's whereabouts and safety."

Williams, 31, was a math prodigy working as a codebreaker at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the state eavesdropping service. 

Williams' family became increasingly upset during the four days of proceedings as it became clear that his absence did not spark any concern, despite the sensitive nature of his job, according to reports.

Witness F, a senior intelligence officer, told the inquest that MI6 was "profoundly sorry" for the delays, which had made it more difficult for the family to "come to terms with his dreadful death," the newspaper reported.

A detective told the inquest on Tuesday that a "third party was involved in that padlock being locked, and Gareth being placed in the bag."

Spy death inquiry looks at bondage link

The inquest has also been told that Williams, who was single and intensely private, would not have let a stranger into his flat, and that he would not have given his keys to anyone apart from close family.

There were no signs of a break-in or indications of foul play.

Small amounts of unidentified DNA were detected on the bag.

On Wednesday, the inquest heard that years earlier Williams had been found tied to his bed and unable to free himself.

Williams had shouted out for help in the middle of the night when he was living in an annex of the home of his then-landlady Jennifer Elliot in Cheltenham, western England.

Mystery couple sought in UK cyberspy's bizarre death

Elliot and her husband found Williams dressed only in boxer shorts with his hands tied to the headboard of the bed. He told her that he had been just "messing about," trying to see "if I could get myself free," the Telegraph newspaper reported.

In a written statement, Elliot said it was likely "to be sexual rather than escapology," the paper added.

Williams later took up a three-year assignment at the headquarters of Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6, whose offices are on the banks of the River Thames in central London.

An American television producer has been found dead in mysterious circumstances while working in Uganda, his brother-in-law told msnbc.com on Wednesday.

Paul Blackman said that family members had heard that poisoning was suspected in the death of father of two Jeff Rice, 39, who is originally from Oklahoma.

Blackman, who is the brother of Rice's wife Sally, added that the situation was unclear and relatives were trying to establish what exactly had happened

Rice, who previously worked for shows including "The Amazing Race" and Animal Planet's "Whale Wars," died on Friday night. 

Rice's assistant, who Blackman declined to name, also became ill and was taken to a hospital in Uganda.

"We've sent people up there to get some answers," Blackman told msnbc.com by phone from Durban, South Africa. "Nothing is finalized yet.

Addressing media reports that Rice had been fatally poisoned, Blackman said: "I don't know where they are getting this 'definitely poisoned' thing."

Rice moved to South Africa about 13 years ago and holds dual citizenship, Blackman said. His wife is South African.

Rice's death was first reported by FoxNews.com.

'Really tough to handle'
Blackman said Wednesday morning that he was looking after their children, girls aged seven and two, while Sally Blackman tried to get information from the South African police.

He said his sister was finding the uncertainty "really tough to handle, but, yeah, she's strong."

"There's so much stuff in the air about possible poisoning, all that kind of stuff," Blackman said. "At the moment, we're trying to get Jeff's body out of there to get some answers."

Blackman said Rice had been "a historian, tour guide kind of person" in the United States and had started to work in television about three years ago. He and his wife ran SB Productions in Durban.

He added his brother-in-law was working on either a future show or documentary in Uganda.

"He was a fantastic producer apparently, a very, very sought-after producer," he said. "The messages (of condolence) coming in have been very, very good actually. It's been fantastic, he's a very well-liked character. He was a good guy, very relaxed and just a very good guy."

The "about us" section of SB Productions' website says Rice decided there were "better ways to spend his time" after five years "contributing to the stalemate of the 405 in LA."

"From pie in the sky to looking no futher than his nose, his mind is always churning. If Jeff isn't crunching budgets or breaking down scripts, he can probably be found in some unusual African location with his Power Book and a bottle of the local brew. Jeff has an incredibly calm nature and a wicked sense of humor," it adds.

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