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Hearing record

Day 153

Witness: Advocate Peter Serunye

Evidence led by Advocate Pooe

The prosecutor who inherited the Crime Intelligence case tells the commission it never made sense to him, that he warned Johnson in writing, and that he now believes he was set up.

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Awaiting portrait

The day in brief

What you need to know

  • Advocate Peter Serunye, a Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions at IDAC and the senior prosecutor who took over the Crime Intelligence case, testified that it was brought to court prematurely.
  • He said Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo and six co-accused were arrested before the investigation was complete and before critical evidence had been gathered, and that investigators 'proceeded on allegations rather than evidence'.
  • On the corruption count he said the theory did not hold: 'it was not apparent what she could offer the generals in return, nor what unlawful act she was to perform', referring to Brigadier Dineo Mokwele.
  • At a June 2025 court appearance he found junior state advocate Joy Hlatshwayo handling the bail hearing alone with only investigating officer Brian Padayachee, the J15 form incomplete and no bail affidavit in existence; he intervened with fellow DDPP Sibusiso Tshikovhi.
  • After taking over the prosecution on 8 August 2025 he repeatedly requested MP Fadiel Adams's section 27 referral - the founding complaint - and was refused access to it.
  • At a meeting on 1 September 2025, then IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson asked why he would not accept the investigators' assurances and urged that the prosecution proceed.
  • He emailed Johnson warning there was at most a prima facie case of fraud and no case of corruption on the available evidence.
  • He told the commission he believes he was 'set up', and that he and Hlatshwayo had been drawn into an investigation they should never have been part of.
  • The NPA provisionally withdrew all the fraud and corruption charges against Khumalo's group on 27 July 2026.

Full coverage

The day, in depth

The prosecutor who could not find the crime

For weeks the commission has been told the Crime Intelligence case was thin. Day 153 was the first time the senior prosecutor responsible for running it said so under oath. Serunye, a Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions at IDAC, took over the prosecution on 8 August 2025 and told the commission the case simply did not make sense. His objection was not procedural. On the corruption count, the elements were not there: 'it was not apparent what she could offer the generals in return, nor what unlawful act she was to perform.' The 'she' is Brigadier Dineo Mokwele, whose appointment founded the whole matter. A corruption charge requires a quid pro quo, and Serunye's evidence is that nobody had ever identified one.

Arrested first

His broader account was of an inversion the commission has now heard from several directions. Khumalo and six co-accused were arrested and brought to court, he said, before the investigation was complete and before critical evidence had been gathered; the investigators had 'proceeded on allegations rather than evidence'. That sequence - arrest, then investigate - has been the panel's central concern since Day 139, when the lead investigator was asked to justify the case and Justice Madlanga described the directorate's theory as a 'quantum leap in logic'.

The bail hearing nobody had prepared

Serunye gave the commission one scene that carried the argument better than the legal analysis. At a court appearance in June 2025 he discovered that junior state advocate Joy Hlatshwayo was handling the bail hearing on her own, accompanied only by investigating officer Brian Padayachee. The J15 - the administrative form that records the charge and the accused - was incomplete, and no bail affidavit existed. He intervened along with a fellow Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Sibusiso Tshikovhi. A case against the head of Crime Intelligence and six others was, on his account, in court without the basic paperwork done.

The complaint he was never shown

The single most consistent thread across the entire IDAC arc is the founding complaint that nobody could produce. Serunye repeatedly asked for MP Fadiel Adams's section 27 referral and was refused access to it. Colonel Padayachee had already conceded on Day 141 that he did not have Adams's original signed affidavit when the investigation commenced - a state of affairs the chairperson called 'highly improbable'. Now the prosecutor running the matter says he could not get it either. At a meeting on 1 September 2025, Serunye said, Johnson asked why he would not simply accept the investigators' assurances, and urged him to proceed.

The email

Serunye did not proceed quietly. He emailed Johnson warning that on the available evidence there was at most a prima facie case of fraud and no case of corruption at all. That email matters for a reason that goes beyond his own position: it means the head of the directorate was told in writing, by the senior prosecutor on the matter, that the corruption charge could not be sustained - and the prosecution went ahead regardless. Johnson has not yet answered that from the stand.

'Set up'

Serunye told the commission the evidence that has emerged since had fundamentally changed his understanding of the case, and left him convinced that he and Hlatshwayo had been drawn into an investigation they should never have been part of. He said he believed he had been set up. It is a striking thing for a Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions to say about his own office's case, and it places him alongside Ramsamy and Raphesu: three IDAC officials, on three consecutive sitting days, each saying they were used.

In their words

Key moments from the record

“It was not apparent what she could offer the generals in return, nor what unlawful act she was to perform.”
Serunye on the corruption charge. Advocate Peter Serunye, IDAC Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, to the Madlanga Commission on 4 August 2026, on the case against Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo and six co-accused arising from Brigadier Dineo Mokwele's appointment. The NPA provisionally withdrew the charges on 27 July 2026. Untested; all named are presumed innocent.
“They proceeded on allegations rather than evidence.”
Serunye on how the case was built. Advocate Peter Serunye to the Madlanga Commission on 4 August 2026, on the state of the investigation when the accused were arrested. Untested.

Our analysis

The bottom line

The commission has now heard the Crime Intelligence case dismantled by the three categories of person best placed to defend it: the investigator who built it, the director who authorised it, and - on Day 153 - the prosecutor who was meant to win it. Serunye is the most damaging of the three, because a prosecutor's job is precisely to ask whether the elements of the offence are present, and his answer, given in writing at the time, was that they were not.

The email to Johnson converts this from hindsight into contemporaneous record. Hindsight is cheap at a commission of inquiry; a dated warning that the corruption charge could not be sustained is not. It is the kind of document that decides whether an error was a misjudgement or something else.

The pattern across Days 152, 153 and 154 is worth naming. Raphesu says he was pushed off the docket and disciplined for objecting. Serunye says he was denied the founding complaint and pressed to proceed. Ramsamy says she was handed the suspects. Three officials, three different positions in the same case, and the same account of a decision that came from above the file.

The counterweight: Serunye is describing his own conduct as well as other people's, and a prosecutor who says he was set up has an obvious interest in that account. Johnson, Perumal and Padayachee have not answered him. The commission has made no finding, and everyone named is 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

Testified

Advocate Peter Serunye

Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC)

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Follow the threads

Who Advocate Peter Serunye connects to

His former head; he warned her in writing

Advocate Andrea Johnson

Serunye emailed Johnson that there was at most a prima facie case of fraud and no case of corruption, and testified that at a 1 September 2025 meeting she asked why he would not accept the investigators' assurances and urged the prosecution to proceed. Johnson has not answered it from the stand; untested, both presumed innocent.

View profile →Prosecuted him, then testified the case was premature

Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo

Serunye took over the prosecution of the Crime Intelligence head and six co-accused on 8 August 2025 and told the commission on Day 153 that they had been arrested before the investigation was complete. The NPA provisionally withdrew the charges on 27 July 2026. Untested; both presumed innocent.

View profile →The investigating officer on the case he inherited

Colonel Brian Padayachee

Serunye described finding Padayachee at a June 2025 bail hearing with a junior state advocate, an incomplete J15 and no bail affidavit. Padayachee defended the case at the commission across Days 139-141 and was suspended on 30 July 2026 pending a disciplinary process. Untested; both presumed innocent.

View profile →IDAC colleague who also says the case was wrong

Advocate Drushantha Ramsamy

Serunye and Ramsamy both prosecuted within the same directorate and both have now testified that the Crime Intelligence case was directed rather than evidence-led. Untested.

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Zoom out

Related case files

Case file · IDAC vs Crime Intelligence

Khumalo / Mokwele appointment

IDAC charged a Crime Intelligence boss over a civilian's appointment. Sixteen days of testimony left the commission asking what the crime actually was - and by the end the prosecuting authority had withdrawn the case, IDAC's head had resigned, four of her own officials had testified against it, three senior investigators were suspended, and the chairperson had raised shutting the directorate down.

Read the case file →

In the room & on the record

Counsel, the panel and sources

Evidence led by

  • Advocate Pooe

On the panel

  • Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)

Sources

← Earlier in timeDay 15231 July 2026More recent →Day 1545 August 2026