Hearing record

Day 124

23 June 2026

Day 124, 23 June 2026. An inspector in the Johannesburg Metro Police Department's VIP Protection Unit testified before the Madlanga Commission as 'Witness K', in camera - her voice broadcast publicly but her name and image withheld for her safety after she said she feared for her life. She told the commission she had been in a romantic relationship with suspended Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department deputy chief Julius Mkhwanazi and came forward to admit her own role in an alleged theft of precious sugilite stones worth about R14.9 million from a flat in Killarney, Johannesburg on 11 February 2023. She testified that Mkhwanazi assembled a team after she passed on an informer's tip, that EMPD officers Kershia-Leigh Stols and Aiden McKenzie and a civilian, Andy van der Walt, took the stones under a falsified SAPS seizure form to make it look like a lawful police operation, and that the stones were sold for only about R110,000, with each participant receiving roughly R22,000. All allegations are untested; everyone named is presumed innocent.