South Africa's health minister has demanded the Sunday Times “come clean,” and admit to whether newspaper staffers were involved with missing medical documents, taken from the hospital where she had surgery in 2005.

The Medi-Clinic in Cape Town has opened a case of theft after admitting Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's file is missing from the clinic's archives.

The Sunday Times ran an exposé Sunday about the hospital visit, saying Tshabalala-Msimang “disgraces herself with wine, whiskey and tantrums.” The article states that after five months of investigation, reporters learned that “red wine and whiskey were smuggled into Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's private hospital room in a blue bag before and after she underwent surgery.”

Responding for by The Sunday Times, the Johannesburg law firm Bell, Dewar and Hall stated in a letter to the health minister's attorney that the newspaper would not admit guilt to the health code violation for stealing documents.

“It is certainly no basis for your client's demand that our client hand over its journalists' note books or notes it obtained from any confidential source. Accordingly our client invites your client to provide a proper basis for her demand. In the absence of such a basis our client declines to hand over any documentation,” the letter to states.