Hearing record
Day 122
Witness: Major General Lesetja Senona
Evidence led by Advocate Mahlape Sello SC
Suspended KZN Hawks provincial head Lesetja Senona returns for a second round with Advocate Dali Mpofu SC firing back at the commission over 'unfair' treatment, while still denying any hand in the R200m Port Shepstone cocaine theft.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Major General Lesetja Senona was recalled a second time to face fresh questions on the theft of roughly 541kg of cocaine, valued at about R200m, from the Hawks office in Port Shepstone after it was seized near Isipingo in June 2021.
- His new counsel, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC, opened by accusing the commission of a 'serial refusal' to hand over the transcripts and documents Senona needs to answer the allegations against him.
- Mpofu questioned the cost and fairness of recalling Senona over ground he says was already covered during his three-day appearance in January 2026.
- Under questioning by evidence leader Advocate Mahlape Sello SC, Senona said no security threats at the Port Shepstone office had ever been formally reported to him.
- Senona told the commission he was removed from his office 'like a dog' when he was suspended, spoke of being hospitalised for about two weeks, and raised fears for his own and his family's safety.
- He disputed earlier testimony that he had subjected a junior officer to a polygraph over a stolen coffee machine, and confirmed that he himself was never polygraphed after the cocaine vanished.
- All allegations are untested and Senona denies wrongdoing; he remains presumed innocent.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
A contested recall
Before Senona said a word on the merits, Mpofu spent the opening framing the recall itself as procedurally unfair. He told the commission it had repeatedly failed to furnish his client with requested material that reportedly implicates him, characterising the pattern as a 'serial refusal' and saying letters seeking the data drew no reply or unreasonable answers. He also pressed the cost and burden of hauling Senona back over territory covered in his three-day January appearance. These are arguments of counsel, not evidence.
The 2021 bust that became a heist
The consignment at the centre of the inquiry, about 541kg of cocaine worth roughly R200m, was intercepted near Isipingo in KwaZulu-Natal in June 2021. Months later it disappeared from the poorly secured Hawks building in Port Shepstone in what investigators now treat as an inside job. Senona again distanced himself from the theft and from any collusion with organised-crime syndicates.
Security, suspension and a coffee machine
Senona testified that no security threats at the Port Shepstone office were ever reported to him, and described his own removal from office in stark terms, saying he was treated 'like a dog' and was hospitalised for around two weeks. He rejected the account that he had maliciously forced a junior colleague to take a lie-detector test over a stolen coffee machine, and confirmed that he was never himself polygraphed after the drugs went missing.
Fair process versus a searching test
The friction on the day was as much about method as about cocaine. Mpofu's complaint put the commission's document-sharing and its decision to recall a suspended senior officer under a spotlight, even as Sello pressed Senona on custody, security and the coffee-machine episode. The exchange set the tone for a combative second stint in the chair.
In their words
Key moments from the record
“No security threats were reported to me.”
“serial refusal”
Our analysis
The bottom line
A second recall of the same witness is unusual enough to invite exactly the objection Mpofu raised, and his fair-process complaint is not frivolous: a person facing career-ending and potentially criminal implications is entitled to the documents that underpin the case against him. But an objection about access to papers is a different thing from an answer on the merits, and the commission's task is precisely to test Senona's account of how a R200m consignment left a police strong-room on his watch.
Senona's most vivid testimony, being removed 'like a dog' and hospitalised, humanises a suspended officer who plainly feels wronged, yet none of it resolves the central custody question. The coffee-machine polygraph dispute and his own admission that he was never polygraphed after the theft cut in opposite directions and will matter only once weighed against the documentary record.
Nothing said on Day 122 amounts to a finding against anyone. The value of the session is that it sharpened the two things the commission must still reconcile: who controlled access to the Port Shepstone strong-room, and whether the process of examining Senona has been fair enough for his answers to carry weight.
Analysis is the archive’s own comment on the public proceedings, grounded in the record above. It weighs the evidence and the process; questions of individual guilt are for the courts and the commission to decide. Everyone named is presumed innocent.
On the record
Who testified this day
Follow the threads
Who Major General Lesetja Senona connects to
Brigadier Campbell Nyuswa
Nyuswa testified Senona approved storing the cocaine at Port Shepstone and then took possession of both safe keys; Senona says Nyuswa initiated the polygraph applications.
View profile →Top of the chainColonel Gavin Jacob
Jacob's unit moved the drugs to the site Senona directed.
View profile →Signed his transferWarrant Officer Karl Sander
Senona signed Sander's Feb 2024 transfer letter and ordered his polygraphs; on 19 June he said Sander 'misled the commission'.
View profile →Accused of misleading the inquiryLieutenant Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo (retired)
Senona told the commission on 19 June that retired Lt-Col Prinsloo misled it over the Port Shepstone storage handling.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Advocate Mahlape Sello SC
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
Sources
- Daily Maverick - R200m cocaine theft and coffee machine scandal: suspended KZN Hawks boss Senona's version (19 June 2026) ↗
- TimesLIVE - Mpofu claims 'unfair' treatment of Senona at Madlanga commission (19 June 2026) ↗
- IOL - 'No security threats were reported to me': Senona over R200m cocaine theft (19 June 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - 'Extremely strange': Madlanga commission hears details on R200m cocaine theft (19 June 2026) ↗
- Daily Dispatch - R200m drug theft, coffee machine scandal, removed at gunpoint: Senona testifies (20 June 2026) ↗