The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) on Wednesday pushed back against accusations its members attempted to interfere with a police operation that resulted in the arrest of murder accused Katiso Molefe.
He was arrested on December 6 2024 at his house in Sandhurst, Johannesburg.
The allegations of interference are crucial to the commission’s investigation into claims of political and criminal infiltration in the justice, law enforcement & security cluster.
A detective who investigated the assassination of engineer Armand Swart, which Molefe is accused of orchestrating, previously testified at the Madlanga commission that when they were interviewing suspects at the house, they had to attend to Hawks members who demanded to be given details about the operation.
The detective, whose identity is kept secret from the public for safety reasons, described the Hawks’ action as a disturbance and an attempt to interfere with the operation.
Hawks operation questioned
Former Hawks head Gen Godfrey Lebeya was said to have prompted Hawks officers to visit the house after receiving information about a suspected bogus Hawks operation at Molefe’s home.
Capt Barry Kruger and his partner were deployed by their boss, Brig Lesiba Mokoena, the Hawks’ tactical operations management section head, to verify whether there was a legitimate police operation and whether the officials were attached to the Hawks.
Kruger testified how his team had stayed at the house for about 30 minutes before leaving after Capt Maxwell Wanda, a former member of the political killings task team, had confirmed the operation was legitimate.
Kruger told the commission that when they arrived at the scene there was hostility between the SAPS members and the Hawks because neither of the officers was wearing a police uniform.
“I have heard the team conducting operations has stated that they considered our actions as acts of interference in their operation. I was simply carrying out an instruction from my commander [Mokoena] in the best way I know how, given the urgency he expressed,” Kruger said.
“The team executing the takedown was not friendly or collegial towards us, and I admit we were not friendly towards them; however, once Captain Wanda confirmed the operation was legitimate, our team immediately withdrew from the scene.”
Kruger told the commission the Hawks’ “verification operation” was expressed by Mokoena as urgent because it came from Lebeya’s office.
Wanda testified on Wednesday that the situation between the two units calmed down when he spoke to Kruger.
Wanda told the commission that before talking to Kruger he had found the Hawks’ members to be “unfriendly”.
“The presence of the Hawks was concerning to me because they came in numbers. I did not expect them to be that big of a number. When I interacted with them, they were a bit aggressive and demanded answers about the operation,” he said.
Contradictions in the evidence
He said he regarded the situation as a disturbance and attempted interference from the Hawks.
While the commission heard collaborating evidence on Wednesday, it also heard contradictions in the evidence.
Wanda said that while talking to Kruger, an unknown man gave him a phone to speak to Mokoena, who apologised and explained why the Hawks were deployed to the house.
The unknown man, identified as Mr Mthethwa, was said to be the one who called Lebeya and reported a suspected bogus Hawks operation.
Mokoena however, told the commission he spoke to Wanda on Kruger’s phone.
When asked and shown a picture of Mthethwa, Mokoena said he did not know the man. Mthethwa was said to have identified himself as Molefe’s relative.
Evidence leader advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube asked Kruger whether Wanda spoke to his boss and apologised in the telephonic conversation.
Kruger’s statement and diary, which had time stamps and details of the operations, did not detail the phone call from Mokoena asking to speak to Wanda in his presence.
Kruger told the commission he could not recall the phone call.
Commission chair and retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga asked whether he was protecting his boss; Kruger maintained he could not recall, adding it was possible the phone call was through his phone.
The second contraction was Mokoena’s participation in a WhatsApp group Kruger created for the operation at Molefe’s house.
Kruger told the commission he created the group because he was in Pretoria when Mokoena asked him to go to Joburg for an “emergency” operation and wanted other Hawks officers in Joburg and Gauteng traffic police chief George Raftopoulos to assist him in sealing the scene until he arrived.
Mokoena, when quizzed by Madlanga and co-panellists advocates Sesi Baloyi and Sandile Khumalo about messages he had sent to the group, said he was “never part of the group.”
He did not deny the truthfulness of messages shown next to his name but contended they were likely to have been forwarded by Kruger.
Mokoena further testified he was unaware of other members involved in the operation because he only deployed two police officers to avoid chaos and confrontation at the scene.
The evidence leader however, provided the commission with details of the WhatsApp group showing Mokoena was part of the group.
One of the messages showed Mokoena, 14 minutes after the team arrived, telling the team to withdraw because Kruger had verified the legitimacy of the operation.
The Gauteng traffic police had confirmed to the team that the operation was legitimate 15 minutes before Kruger arrived.
Kruger said he went to the scene because he still needed to verify the situation to report to his superiors.
He further confirmed there was no formal report of their operation at Molefe’s house in the Hawks’ administration system. He took the blame, saying he should have asked for permission from Mokoena to get an inquiry number to report the incident.
He said he had recorded the operation in his diary and had taken pictures of cars outside the house, some of which were confirmed to be state vehicles, for record-keeping purposes.
Kruger said when he left other Hawks members, who were unknown to him, had arrived on the scene.
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