National police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola says the 121 dockets that were removed from the KwaZulu-Natal political killings task team will be processed and sent back to the province for the team to continue with its investigations.
He said officials from the SAPS head office were making copies before sending them back to the team.
At a televised media briefing on July 6, KZN police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said 121 case dockets were removed from the task team and handed to the office of the deputy commissioner for crime detection, Gen Shadrack Sibiya.
Mkhwanazi had said that five of those dockets already had instructions to arrest the suspects.
On Thursday, Masemola said: “I wrote the letter to the detectives and the provincial commissioner to return them, but I know that they must go through a process of checking, making copies and then taking them back.”
He said the nature of the cases being handled by the task team was not simple to investigate as they included cases of murder, attempted murder and intimidation, and that he was not expecting arrests soon.
Masemola revealed that in a few weeks, the police will open a leg of the political killings task team in Gauteng to investigate some unresolved and “complex” cases of murders of politicians and taxi-violence related incidents.
I wrote the letter to the detectives and the provincial commissioner to return them, but I know that they must go through a process of checking, making copies and then taking them back.
— Police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola
At his media briefing in July, Mkhwanazi accused suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu of interfering in sensitive investigations and protecting controversial businessman Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.
He alleged that Mchunu had ties with Matlala and his North West associate, Brown Mogotsi, and that Mogotsi had influenced Mchunu’s decision to disband the political killings task team in December.
He further alleged that Sibiya was acting in cahoots with Mchunu to shut down the task team. Mkhwanazi also said a police investigation had uncovered a syndicate run by a drug cartel and that the network included politicians, law enforcement officials from the SAPS, metro police and correctional services, as well as prosecutors, members of the judiciary and businesspeople.
The Madlanga commission, chaired by retired constitutional court justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, has since been established by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate Mkwanazi’s allegations.
However, the commission will not commence next week as had been planned. The commission’s spokesperson, Jeremy Michaels, said they will reschedule to a later date due to delays in the procurement of vital infrastructure.
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