Ruling African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Ace Magashule has handed himself over to South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) in Bloemfontein on corruption charges, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Friday.

Hawks spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale confirmed that the arrest warrant for Magashule, issued on Tuesday, had been executed.

NPA spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said Magashule, 61, presented himself considerably earlier than 10am, the time agreed with his lawyers.

This meant that his court appearance could start ahead of the scheduled time of 11am.

He would be taken from the Hawks’s offices to the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court, Ngwema said.

Magashule is the most senior politician to be arrested since late September, when the Hawks and the NPA began bringing corruption charges against a slew of officials and politically connected businessmen.

He will be charged with corruption in relation to a suspect R255-million asbestos audit contract inked while he served as premier of the Free State in 2014.

Seven others, including prominent businessman Edwin Sodi, have been indicted but their trial has been postponed until February next year, to allow the NPA to charge Magashule and potentially others.

Supporters of Magashule were out early in the streets of Bloemfontein, though authorities had closed President Brand Street and St George’s Street near the magistrate’s court at midnight.

Video footage showed that some were wearing African National Congress regalia, apparently ignoring a plea by the governing party’s top six leaders — which they said Magashule had endorsed — not to turn the case into a partisan spectacle.

While supporters protested his innocence, others said they had gathered to see justice served and hoped Magashule would go to jail because rampant corruption had impoverished the people of the Free State.

“I am here to see justice served. He must go to jail, we have been struggling,” a woman told television news channel ENCA.

Prominent politicians who came to support the ANC secretary-general included North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo, who accompanied him to the Hawks’s offices and said he believed Magashule as innocent.

ANC spokesperson Dakota Legoeta was also on the scene, as well as Ekurhuleni premier Mzwandile Masina.