A secret witness has testified at the Madlanga commission that when police went to the house of the alleged assassination mastermind, Katiso Molefe, to arrest him, officers who purported to have been sent by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation’s (DPCI’s) former head, Gen Godfrey Lebeya, attempted to interfere with the operation.
The witness, whose identity has been withheld due to safety concerns, is giving evidence about interference in police work, focusing on what happened during the investigation of the assassination of engineer Armand Swart.
Swart, an engineer for a company called QTech, was shot 23 times in Vereeniging on April 17 2024. He was killed after his company reported fraud to Transnet about SK Group, which allegedly inflated prices in their tender with the state.
Molefe, a businessperson connected to the tender, was arrested in December after police linked him to detective Michael Pule Tau, who was arrested for the murder two hours after Swart was killed.
The secret witness, who was one of the investigators in Swart’s murder, told the commission that while he and other police officers were inside Molefe’s house combing through evidence, he was called to attend to police officers who claimed to be from the Hawks, demanding information about the operation.
The detective said he went to the gate to address the members claiming to be from the Hawks and explained they were conducting a police operation.
He said one officer, identified as Cpt Kruger, pushed for more details about the operation and the case they were investigating. The witness said he refused to give more details about the case because it was sensitive and not a lot of people knew about it, but that did not deter them from asking for information.
He said this was unusual in the police’s line of work, and he considered it to be interfering in the operation. He told the commission he asked the officers what they were doing there and was told they were sent by the Hawks’ national head.
“They told us they were sent by their … national head; they did not really say the name, but there was only one national head of the Hawks at that time. Even if you are not told of the name, you would know who the general of the Hawks is,” he said.
When asked whether he understood the officers to be referring to Lebeya, he said yes.
The witness said one of the officers who came with Kruger asked him why he did not arrest Kruger for interfering with police investigations.
He said a few minutes after attending to the said officers at the gate, a helicopter hovered above the house.
“When I was going back inside, there was the noise of a helicopter that was hovering so low over the house. It was a traffic helicopter. I asked for protection on that one to say we will have a problem here,” he said.
He said he felt the operation was under threat and wondered whether the police would walk out of the house with Molefe.
“This showed us we were dealing with a person of a different calibre than what we were used to,” he said.
On the same day, PA deputy president Kenny Kunene visited Molefe.
The commission hearing continues.
