The Madlanga commission has heard how the suspended police deputy commissioner for crime detection, Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, was seen driving a bakkie belonging to a convicted criminal.
The man, car thief Stuart James Scharnick, also accompanied Sibiya to a hearing of the parliamentary ad hoc committee that is investigating allegations of criminality in the criminal justice system made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
On Tuesday, police head of intelligence Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo showed the commission a video as well as pictures of Sibiya driving a car belonging to Scharnick.
The car thief had 34 cases against him previously. He was found guilty of 18, 11 were withdrawn and he was found not guilty of five, Khumalo revealed.
It is not clear when Scharnick was sentenced or when and where he had served time in prison.
Khumalo said the relationship between Scharnick and Sibiya showed the infiltration of criminals into the police service, which made the job of junior officials painful.
“It makes the life of those who want to get through these cases very difficult because for them to come close to [solving the cases], they must first go through the deputy commissioner [Sibiya]. With this [evidence], we are confirming and proving the challenges that we are facing,” he said.
It makes the life of those who want to get through these cases very difficult because for them to come close to [solving the cases], they must first go through the deputy commissioner [Sibiya]
— Dumisani Khumalo , police head of intelligence
The commission was also shown a picture of Scharnick sitting behind Sibiya at the parliamentary ad hoc committee in Cape Town last month.
Khumalo also provided the commission with footage of a police sergeant, identified only as “Nkosi” from Sibiya’s office, entering the home of alleged criminal cartel member and multiple murder-accused Katiso “KT” Molefe.
The visit in November 2024, Khumalo said, was just 10 days before Molefe was arrested for the murder of Vaal engineer Armand Swart.
Molefe was arrested on December 6.
Nkosi was in the house for less than 10 minutes and was seen carrying a paper bag to his car, Khumalo said.
“[He is seen] carrying a white paper bag. Unfortunately for us, it’s not transparent, so you can’t see what type of chocolate is in there,” he said.
“But he [had] a bag that didn’t look like it was heavy, but it had some contents. We’ll use lots of analytical minds to check what it is that you can carry in such a carrier bag with value, but it’s not that heavy.
“[It was] like he just came in to collect something that was already packed and waiting for pickup,” said Khumalo.
Witness C last week told the commission that Nkosi was the middleman between Sibiya and the tenderpreneur and attempted murder-accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and collected money on behalf of Sibiya.
Khumalo earlier said that the criminal cartel recruits police officials to carry out their mandates and to give them crucial information.
“The recruitment by the organised groups in the form of syndicates or cartels is very targeted. They will want to have more of their members [to] have experience or still be serving within the criminal justice system; that includes SAPS,” Khumalo said, adding that the arrest of Johannesburg policeman Michael Tau for the murder of Swart did not come as a surprise.
Tau is the alleged hitman in Swart’s murder. He was arrested hours after Swart was shot 23 times after the company he worked for flagged an irregular multimillion-rand Transnet tender.
Tau was arrested in Bramley, Johannesburg, and police found 15 used cartridges in his car.
Molefe, Tau and their co-accused have also been charged with high-profile murders, including that of DJ Sumbody, real name Oupa Sefoka, and his two bodyguards, Sibusiso Mokoena and Sandile Myeza, in November 2022.
The guns used to kill Swart, DJ Sumbody, Myeza and Mokoena have been linked to several other murders and cash-in-transit heists, including the attempted murder of Matlala’s ex-lover, actress Tebogo Thobejane.
Khumalo said during the raid to arrest Matlala, another alleged criminal cartel member, on December 6, they had to beef up their team.
“We had to mobilise extra special task force members from outside Gauteng. The main reason for this is because we did a threat assessment on Mr Matlala and based on the profiles of his more than 20 protectors, we discovered that his protectors are former [police] special task force members.
“We were not going to do our work properly if we only sent a combat team to Matlala’s house that was less trained than what we were going to face,” said Khumalo.
The commission continues.
Sowetan
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