For a brief moment, one was relieved that the trial against some of those accused of having conspired to kill former ANC Youth League secretary-general Sandiso Magaqa would finally start.
But, alas, yet another delay. This time, because one of the accused, former uMzimkhulu municipal manager Zweliphansi Skhosana, has once again changed lawyers, and his new team of legal representatives needs time to familiarise themselves with the docket.
Where one finds solace is in the words of the presiding officer, who, when agreeing to postpone the matter to June 3, warned that he would not entertain any further delays.
“Should you fire Mr Dlamini [Skhosana’s latest lawyer], we would have no option but to set the matter down for trial without you being legally represented. It has happened in the past, and there is no reason why it should not happen to you,” warned the judge at the Pietermaritzburg high court.
Before the judge’s remarks, state prosecutor Elvis Gcweka had told the court that the delays in the case have, over the years, seen four witnesses die, which jeopardises the matter.
“I want to also place it on record that we have other witnesses; ever since this matter started, those witnesses have been kept under witness protection. For every postponement, we have to explain to those witnesses and beg them to remain in witness protection… They have been there for more than six years,” said Gcweka.
One need not mention the pain Magaqa’s elderly mother and the rest of his family have to go through every time they travel from uMzimkhulu to Pietermaritzburg, only to be told of yet another postponement.
Magaqa, who became an ANC councillor in the small KwaZulu-Natal town after the dissolution of an ANC Youth League national executive committee he served in as secretary-general, was assassinated on September 4 2017, for his role in exposing corruption in the council.
Since then, a lot of political entrepreneurs have sought to capitalise on the tragedy, many invoking his name to appear as crusaders against corruption while they were doing nothing to ensure that those responsible for his murder were brought to book.
Even within the police service, there have been many instances where one had reason to wonder if all of those said to be working on the case actually had the goal of catching the killers and their paymasters.
One even wonders sometimes if the case would be where it is today were it not for the confession of one of the hitmen, Sibusiso Ncengwa, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year for his role in the matter.
But those close to the investigations do say that there are still some very good and dedicated cops in the service and that it was their tenacious work on the case that led to a breakthrough and, later, Ncengwa’s confession.
The officers involved, of course, are members of the political killings task team, which is at the centre of the ongoing Madlanga commission inquiry into several allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi about the capture of the police service by criminal gangs.
Hence, Magaqa’s name featured prominently in one of the sideshows of the whole Madlanga commission – the arrest of National Coloureds Congress leader and MP Fadiel Adams.
The merits of the police case against Adams are yet to be fully ventilated in court, but basically, what they are accusing him of is “interfering” with their investigations by visiting Magaqa’s killer in prison with the hope of obtaining evidence that would implicate senior police bosses who are close to Mkhwanazi.
Whatever Adams’s motives were for visiting the Westville prison in Durban, apparently under the guise of being on official parliamentary business, something is unsettling about how various factions in the police and the political arena find it easy to abuse Magaqa’s name in pursuit of their factional interests.
If all were seriously concerned with holding all of those responsible for his murder accountable, they would be focusing their efforts on one of the most troubling aspects of his murder case.
This is the allegation, which the state has never denied, that the AK47 used to kill him, as well as one of the escape vehicles, was supplied to the killers by members of the SAPS crime intelligence unit.
In other words, the state was complicit in Magaqa’s killing. The claim is not only in the affidavit of one of those accused of the murder but has also been repeated by several senior police officials under oath on various public platforms. Yet the cops involved are not in jail or attending trial as accused.
Apartheid SA’s dark history of extrajudicial killings is still too fresh in our minds for us to simply ignore this extraordinary claim. Those crime intelligence officers should be joining the other three in the dock when the case resumes in June.
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