Police detective Michael Pule Tau was found with 15 empty cartridge cases two hours after engineer Armand Swart was killed, but a Gauteng police ballistic report “omitted” crucial information about the cartridge cases, a secret witness told the Madlanga commission on Monday.
The testimony points to a criminal infiltration of the police service.
Swart, an engineer for a company called QTech, was shot 23 times in Vereeniging on April 17 2024. His murder is linked to a whistle-blower report on a Transnet tender made by his company.
Those arrested for the murder included Tau — who resigned from the SA Police Service (SAPS) after being granted bail in August last year — Tiego Floyd Mabusela and Musa Kekana.
A gun and 15 empty cartridges were recovered from Tau’s personal car, and three guns were recovered from Kekana’s car when they were arrested in Bramley on April 17 2024.
These were taken for ballistic analysis at SAPS facilities in Silverton, Pretoria.
The witness, who investigated the Swart murder, told the commission he and his partner were made to wait for an hour and 30 minutes on the day they went to collect the ballistic report because amendments needed to be made to the report. When they received the report, the witness said it seemed “certain information was missing”.
When asked whether it was an omission or a possible error, he said it could have been an error that some information was missing. But there was much interference in the murder investigation, and his initial thought was that it was an omission.
The officer who wrote the ballistic report told the investigators the guns were linked to many murders in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, and they were investigating “dangerous people” and needed to be careful, the witness said.
The ballistic report, however, did not have the details linking the guns to other murders.
The investigators then consulted their superiors to ask for a ballistic report to be conducted in KwaZulu-Natal.
When they arrived in the province, the forensic expert who conducted the report asked why there was no finding in the Gauteng report about the cartridges, and yet the cartridges were confirmed to have been received.
The witness said the observation by the ballistic report in KwaZulu-Natal confirmed his suspicions there was information missing in the report which was crucial in the assassination case and solving other high-profile murders.
The weapons have since been linked to the murders of musicians Oupa Sefoka, known as DJ Sumbody, and Hector Buthelezi, known as DJ Vintos.
The witness told the commission Tau’s phone record analysis showed he was in constant communication with alleged hitman mastermind and businessperson Katiso Molefe.
Molefe is out on R400,000 bail and is accused of orchestrating Swart’s murder and those of the musicians.
He is linked to the “Big Five cartel”, which was allegedly involved in drug trafficking, extortion, cross-border vehicle hijacking, cross-border vehicle theft and tender fraud. Attempted murder accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala has also been linked to the cartel.
The phone records show Molefe called Tau five days before Swart’s murder, and the police officer visited his house on the same day, April 12 2024.
Molefe thereafter sent him the contact number of a “white person” who works at QTech.
CCTV footage from QTech shows Tau’s personal car driving past QTech the day before the murder.
The witness told the commission that Tau, or whoever was in his car, was scouting the area a day before the assassination.
He confirmed to the commission that, according to evidence given by KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the investigators’ lives were at risk and there were attempts to bribe them, which prompted the political killings task team to join investigations in Gauteng.
The witness said Gauteng organised crime head Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri had told him and his partner about the news that there were “three envelopes” for the detectives, prosecutor and magistrate not to push back on Tau’s bail.
He said Shibiri did not advise them on how to deal with the bribe offers should they get to them, and he was concerned about that because he was their senior. The witness said Shibiri instead warned them they were dealing with a “sensitive murder investigation” with links to a ruthless taxi boss and should be careful.
The hearing continues on Tuesday.
