Cedrick Nkabinde, suspended chief of staff to then police minister Senzo Mchunu, returned to the ad hoc committee investigating allegations made by KwaZulu‑Natal police commissioner Lieutenant‑General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and read into the record an alleged threatening message from forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan.
“Get ready, you lying crook,” the message said, adding that O’Sullivan would “ensure that Nkabinde goes to jail”. Nkabinde told the committee he would provide a screenshot to the secretariat so the communication could be preserved on the record.
The development shifted the hearing’s focus from discrepancies in affidavits and contested dates to immediate questions about witness intimidation and the influence of external actors alleged by witnesses across the criminal‑justice cluster. Chairperson Soviet Lekganyane reminded members of the committee’s procedural limits, but several MPs said they would refer the matter to parliamentary legal services and urged law‑enforcement follow‑up under the statutory offence that prohibits threatening witnesses.
Nkabinde’s appearance reopened last week’s halted testimony, when the committee flagged inconsistencies between his original sworn statement and a supplementary affidavit. He defended the supplementary filing as an amplification that corrected dates after he verified records. He told MPs his phones and laptop were seized in a police operation in October, restricting his ability to confirm details when he prepared his initial affidavit. The committee’s questioning ranged widely as MPs tested the provenance of the alleged message, probed why Nkabinde recorded conversations with Mkhwanazi and scrutinised the decision to refer certain complaints to specialist investigatory bodies.
ANC chief whip Mdumiseni Ntuli asked who leaked the recording, and Nkabinde replied that “it was never in the public domain until it was played in the committee”. Lekganyane asked whether his recording of Mkhwanazi was lawful and ethical, and Nkabinde said “it was”, adding that he recorded after receiving what he described as a distorted message and did not inform Mkhwanazi in advance.
DA MP Ian Cameron asked whether Mchunu instructed him to record Mkhwanazi, and Nkabinde said, “Mchunu made a suggestion; I decided to record after I received a distorted message.”
ActionSA MP Dereleen James asked why he did not consult Mchunu’s personal assistant’s diary before his first affidavit, and Nkabinde said, “I was satisfied with my first affidavit until I came to the committee.”
When pressed on whether he had access to the minister’s diary as chief of staff, Nkabinde said he consulted Mchunu’s personal assistant to access the minister’s calendar and used that calendar to establish a sequence of events, but reiterated that his own devices were seized and that he lacked direct access to his phones and laptop.
Nkabinde repeated allegations he first set out in earlier statements: that Paul O’Sullivan enjoyed outsized influence across the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA); that private meetings involving journalists and civil‑society actors had aimed to discredit or block certain senior police appointments; and that networks existed to “usurp power” in the criminal‑justice cluster. He also defended his decision to refer a complainant’s allegations to the Independent Directorate for the Prosecution of Anti‑Corruption, saying, “I’ve done nothing wrong in referring that matter to IDAC.”
MPs pressed Nkabinde on credibility. EFF MP Leigh‑Ann Mathys repeatedly questioned why he supplied a supplementary affidavit rather than a new sworn statement and asked whether the minister should have engaged him before acting on the complaint his letter prompted. Nkabinde replied that he had not been guided by others in drafting the letter to the minister and that he could not evaluate the minister’s decision because he had not discussed it with him.
MK Party MP Vusi Shongwe challenged him on leaks and alleged media contact, but Nkabinde said he did not disclose confidential information.
Evidence leader Norman Arendse and several MPs emphasised that multiple sworn statements should be read together and subjected to interrogation rather than discarded.
Cameron and others urged the committee to summon corroborating witnesses named by Nkabinde, including O’Sullivan and former Ipid head Robert McBride, to resolve competing factual accounts.
MPs invoked section 17 of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures, which criminalises threats made “in respect of evidence to be given before a House or committee”, and several members signalled intent to escalate the alleged message to parliamentary legal services and to request a criminal investigation if prima facie evidence of intimidation exists.
The committee also signalled it would seek the alleged screenshot and preserve any electronic evidence.
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