Madlanga Commission hearing record
Day 152 of the Madlanga Commission
Witness: Mantsha Robert Raphesu
Evidence led by Advocate Pooe
The second IDAC official in two days turns on the directorate: Raphesu says he was pushed off the Mokwele docket, disciplined for objecting, and intends to lay criminal charges against two of his own colleagues.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- The witness was IDAC investigator Mantsha Robert Raphesu - one of the two officials whose recorded voice notes disputing the 'A1' statement were played to the commission on Day 148.
- He told the commission he intends to open a criminal case against IDAC chief investigator Dylan Perumal and senior investigator Brian Padayachee, alleging they targeted him.
- He asked the commission to intervene, fearing a complaint lodged through the normal channels could 'end up in the wrong hands'.
- Although he was the lead investigator on the Brigadier Dineo Mokwele matter, he said team members consulted witnesses in that matter without informing him or involving him.
- He said he was removed from key investigations, subjected to disciplinary action and later barred from working on cases involving police officers and the security cluster.
- He produced a disciplinary letter dated 7 February 2025 from then IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson's office accusing him of leaking confidential information; he denied it and volunteered his cellphone for forensic examination and himself for a polygraph test.
- He testified that Johnson put a false version of MP Fadiel Adams's section 27 referral before Parliament's ad hoc committee on police corruption, omitting the allegations that the Political Killings Task Team had misused Crime Intelligence's secret services account.
- He said state advocate Drushantha Ramsamy told the investigating team she was under instruction not to give them documents.
- The previous day, the Justice Minister and the NDPP had suspended Perumal, Padayachee and investigator Suneel Bellochun and placed IDAC under a six-month reset.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
The second voice from the tape
On Day 148 the commission played recorded voice notes from two IDAC officials on the Crime Intelligence docket, disputing the authenticity of the supplementary 'A1' statement chief investigator Dylan Perumal filed. At the time this archive withheld both names because reputable outlets could not agree on them. Both have since given evidence in person: Advocate Drushantha Ramsamy on Day 151, and on Day 152, Mantsha Robert Raphesu, the investigator. Twenty-four hours after the first, the second took the stand and made the conflict inside the directorate explicit.
Criminal charges against his own colleagues
Raphesu told the commission he intends to open a criminal case against Perumal and senior investigator Brian Padayachee, alleging that they targeted him. He asked the commission to intervene in how that complaint is handled, because he feared that if he lodged it through the ordinary channels it could 'end up in the wrong hands'. That is an investigator telling a judicial commission that he does not trust his own institution to process a criminal complaint against two of its senior staff. Both men were suspended the previous day, pending disciplinary processes and on precautionary grounds; neither has answered Raphesu's allegations, and both are presumed innocent.
The lead investigator who was not told
The substance of his grievance goes to the Mokwele docket - the appointment of Brigadier Dineo Mokwele that founded the entire Crime Intelligence prosecution. 'Although I was the lead investigator on the Mokwele matter,' Raphesu told the commission, 'members of the team consulted witnesses in that matter without informing me and without my involvement.' He said he was subsequently removed from key investigations, subjected to disciplinary action, and later restricted from working on cases involving police officers and the security cluster - the exact category of case he had objected about.
The disciplinary letter, and the polygraph
He produced a specific document: a disciplinary letter dated 7 February 2025 from the office of then IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson, accusing him of leaking confidential information. He denied the accusation and, unusually for a witness in this inquiry, volunteered to prove it - offering his cellphone for forensic examination and himself for a polygraph test. The offer is not evidence of anything by itself, but it is the sort of thing a commission notices, and it stands in contrast to the paperwork problems the panel has spent a month examining.
What he says Parliament was told
His most far-reaching allegation concerned Parliament. Raphesu testified that Johnson presented a false version of MP Fadiel Adams's section 27 referral to Parliament's ad hoc committee on police corruption, omitting the allegations that the Political Killings Task Team had misused Crime Intelligence's secret services account. That matters because the omission would go to the heart of the same question Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC put to Johnson on Day 149: whether IDAC investigated selectively. He also said Ramsamy had told the investigating team she was under instruction not to give them documents - a claim that sits alongside Serunye's evidence two sitting days later that he too could not get the founding complaint.
In their words
Key moments from the record
“Although I was the lead investigator on the Mokwele matter, members of the team consulted witnesses in that matter without informing me and without my involvement.”
Our analysis
The bottom line
Day 151 gave the commission a prosecutor who said the suspects were chosen from the top. Day 152 gave it an investigator who says he objected and was removed for it. Together they describe the same directorate from two different desks, and the accounts fit: if the case came down pre-assembled, the lead investigator on the founding matter would be the obstacle, and the record he produced is of exactly that - consultations he was not told about, a disciplinary letter, then a bar on the whole category of case.
The request that the commission intervene in his criminal complaint is the detail worth pausing on. An anti-corruption investigator asked a judicial commission to take charge of a criminal complaint because he did not believe the normal channels were safe. Whether or not his substantive allegations are ever accepted, that request is itself evidence about the state of the institution.
This day also closes an editorial loop in this archive. On Day 148 we deliberately withheld both officials' names because outlets gave three different first names for one and two spellings for the other. Both have now testified in person and the record has settled: Advocate Drushantha Ramsamy and Mantsha Robert Raphesu. The withholding rule worked and then released.
Nothing here is a finding. Perumal, Padayachee, Johnson and Ramsamy are all named in Raphesu's account and none has answered it from the stand in respect of these specific allegations. All are presumed innocent.
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 Mantsha Robert Raphesu connects to
Advocate Drushantha Ramsamy
Ramsamy and Raphesu are the two IDAC officials whose recorded voice notes disputing the 'A1' statement were played on Day 148. Both later testified in person - she on Day 151, he on Day 152. He told the commission she had said she was under instruction not to give the investigating team documents. Untested; both presumed innocent.
View profile →One of the colleagues he intends to chargeColonel Brian Padayachee
Raphesu told the commission he intends to open a criminal case against Padayachee and chief investigator Dylan Perumal, alleging they targeted him. Padayachee was suspended by the NDPP on 30 July 2026 pending a disciplinary process and has not answered these allegations. Untested; presumed innocent.
View profile →The head whose office disciplined himAdvocate Andrea Johnson
Raphesu produced a 7 February 2025 disciplinary letter from Johnson's office accusing him of leaking confidential information, which he denies, and alleged she gave Parliament's ad hoc committee a false version of the founding section 27 referral. Johnson has not answered either; untested, both presumed innocent.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Advocate Pooe
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
Sources
- IOL - IDAC's Raphesu to open case against colleagues, urges Madlanga Commission to step in over fears of interference (31 Jul 2026) ↗
- EWN - Senior IDAC investigator accuses Andrea Johnson of misleading Parliament's ad hoc committee (31 Jul 2026) ↗
- EWN - Madlanga Commission hears Andrea Johnson took unusual role in assigning PKTT investigation (31 Jul 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - 'No one is saying f*k*l': Idac investigator tells Madlanga commission of internal plot against him ↗
- East Coast Radio - IDAC investigator says team was denied access to Section 27 referral ↗
- SABC News - Raphesu admits role in Crime Intelligence officials' probe ↗
- Daily Maverick - Andrea Johnson's 'Project Diversion' a personal project against top cops, inquiry told (2 Aug 2026) ↗