Madlanga Commission hearing record
Day 168 of the Madlanga Commission
Witness: Lieutenant General Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya
Evidence led by Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube
For nine months the commission has been collecting other people's accounts of the phone call that sent Hawks units to Katiso Molefe's Sandton house on the night of his arrest. On Thursday the man who made the call took the stand, at his own expense, and said he had never heard of Molefe, that a businessman told him impostors were on the scene, and that a national head who knows impostors exist does not sit back and do nothing.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Retired Lieutenant General Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya, national head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation from 2018 until his retirement in 2025, gave evidence to the Madlanga Commission for the first time, at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria. The evidence was led by Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube.
- Before he began, his attorney Eric Nwedo told the commission that Lebeya was appearing at his own cost. He applied for state-funded legal representation on 12 November 2025 and the South African Police Service refused it on 6 January 2026.
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga said the commission had no power to direct the police to reconsider, and told him the remedy was a review: 'I do not think we can come to the doctor's assistance.' Lebeya holds a doctorate in law and is addressed as Dr Lebeya.
- Nwedo argued that the official who took the decision, Deputy National Commissioner Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, had a conflict of interest because she had previously served under Lebeya, and called the stated reasons frivolous. One of them, per The Citizen, was that 'his version differs with the version of other Saps witnesses'.
- On the substance, Lebeya denied knowing the murder-accused businessman at the centre of the day: 'I do not know Mr Katiso Molefe. I was not contacted by Mr Katiso Molefe; I was contacted by Malcolm X.'
- Malcolm X is a Johannesburg businessman and self-styled anti-corruption campaigner. Lebeya said he first met him in April 2023 and described him as neither friend nor enemy.
- Lebeya's account of what he did with the call: 'I directed two senior managers to verify the allegations about persons who were said to be claiming to be members of the DPCI and to have been sent by me. I have never instructed members of the DPCI to interrupt a legitimate police operation.'
- He justified acting at all by pointing to the scale of police impersonation, citing more than thirty cases known to him: 'A reasonable national head who is aware of the existence of imposters will not sit back and do nothing.'
- He then turned the question around and put it on the chain of command, saying he had not been told the operation was happening and would not have deployed Hawks members if he had known: 'The obligation is put on the provincial commissioner, so they shall have discussed with General Khumalo: let us inform the national head if needed.'
- A separate strand: Lebeya said private investigator Paul O'Sullivan approached him for an update on the Phala Phala investigation and that he refused, because 'I can't report to any other person about the progress of matters in the DPCI.'
- He told the commission that when O'Sullivan made the approach he said he was sitting with Dr Bejani Chauke, a political adviser to President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom he described as a friend. Lebeya's reading of it: 'I just felt somebody else was asking me to provide him with the status of the matter.'
- Per SABC News he also confirmed that he discussed the misconduct allegations against former IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson with the then National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi. That corroborates, from the person who did it, evidence the commission heard in July 2026 from retired Colonel Kobus Roelofse.
- Nothing on Thursday was a finding. Molefe is charged and has not been convicted; O'Sullivan, Chauke, Johnson, Batohi and Malcolm X have not answered this evidence before the commission; all of them are presumed innocent.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
Nine months of evidence pointing at an empty chair
The Sandhurst raid has been one of the longest-running threads in this inquiry. On 6 December 2024 members of the KwaZulu-Natal Political Killings Task Team and the Special Task Force arrested Katiso 'KT' Molefe at his Sandhurst home in connection with the murder of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart. While that operation was under way, members of the Hawks arrived. From October 2025 onwards a succession of officers told the commission what happened next and why: a task team member alleged interference, Brigadier Lesiba Mokoena of the Hawks tactical operations section said he had sent only two people, and in November 2025 Major General Kadwa testified that Lebeya had telephoned him to ask whether the Hawks were running an operation in Sandhurst, that he did not know where Lebeya had got the claim that impostors were present, and that it was the first time in his career the national head had phoned him about a live operation. Every version ended at the same door. Justice Madlanga said at the time that Lebeya would almost certainly be called. On Day 168 he was.
A witness paying his own way
The day opened on a question of money rather than evidence. Lebeya's attorney, Eric Nwedo, told the commission that his client was before it at his own expense. Lebeya applied to the South African Police Service for state-funded legal representation on 12 November 2025; the application was refused on 6 January 2026. Per The Citizen, Nwedo attacked both the decision-maker and the reason. The decision was taken by Deputy National Commissioner Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, who Nwedo said had previously worked under Lebeya and therefore had a conflict of interest, and one of the reasons given was that 'his version differs with the version of other Saps witnesses'. Nwedo called that problematic, on the ground that it implies the police expected its witnesses to align. He noted that Lebeya had been granted funding for the Khampepe Commission after an initial refusal. Justice Madlanga acknowledged the position but declined to intervene, saying the commission has no power to tell the police to reconsider and that the proper route is a review or a challenge to the decision. The exchange matters beyond Lebeya. A commission whose central subject is the independence of the police is hearing that a retired national head of the Hawks is funding his own appearance because his account does not match the account of serving officers.
The denial, and the man who made the call
The core of the allegation is that Lebeya sent Hawks members to Molefe's house to disrupt a lawful arrest of a man alleged by other witnesses to be a leader of the so-called Big Five cartel. Lebeya's answer was to deny the premise. He said he does not know Molefe, was never contacted by Molefe, and was contacted instead by a Johannesburg businessman who uses the name Malcolm X. He put their first meeting in April 2023 and said the man is neither a friend nor an enemy. This part of the account is not new to the public record: in an interview with eNCA published on 28 July 2025, Malcolm X himself said he had called Lebeya on the day of the arrest, acting for Molefe's brother, who is one of his clients and who wanted to know whether there was a warrant. On Thursday the two accounts met on the commission's own record for the first time. What they do not settle is the question underneath them, which is why the national head of a specialised investigative directorate takes a call about a live arrest from a private businessman at all.
Verification, not interference
Lebeya's characterisation of what followed the call was carefully chosen. He did not send officers to the scene; he directed two senior managers to verify an allegation. In his words: 'I directed two senior managers to verify the allegations about persons who were said to be claiming to be members of the DPCI and to have been sent by me. I have never instructed members of the DPCI to interrupt a legitimate police operation.' The distinction is the same one Major General Kadwa drew in November 2025, when he described the ten minutes his members spent at the scene as verification rather than interference, while conceding that in hindsight he should have asked Lebeya for more information before deploying anyone. The commission's difficulty with the verification account has never been its plausibility in the abstract. It is that the allegation being verified was that people were impersonating the Hawks on Lebeya's authority, and the method chosen to verify it was to send armed Hawks units into an arrest scene where a national task team was already working.
The impostor defence
Asked why he acted on a businessman's phone call, Lebeya gave the commission a general answer rather than a specific one. Per eNCA he said he was aware of more than thirty cases in which people had impersonated Hawks officials, and put the standard as a duty: 'A reasonable national head who is aware of the existence of imposters will not sit back and do nothing.' It is a real problem and it is the strongest ground he occupied all day, because it supplies a lawful and institutional reason for a national head to want the claim checked. It also has a limit that the commission is likely to press. A duty to check whether impostors are using your directorate's name explains making enquiries. It does not by itself explain deploying operational units to the address, at night, during someone else's arrest, without first establishing from within the police whether an authorised operation was under way.
The protocol counter-attack
The most consequential thing Lebeya did on Thursday was to turn the allegation into a question about who failed to tell him. He said the Molefe operation was never communicated to him, that the obligation to inform the national head sits with the provincial commissioner in consultation with Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo, and that he would not have deployed Hawks members had he known: 'The obligation is put on the provincial commissioner, so they shall have discussed with General Khumalo: let us inform the national head if needed.' Read narrowly this is an explanation. Read as the commission is likely to read it, it is an allegation of its own, made by a retired national head against the crime intelligence leadership and provincial commanders, that a major takedown was run without telling the Hawks. That is now on the record for the panel to test against Khumalo's own evidence, which is already extensive and which has been given from a position of considerable jeopardy of its own.
Paul O'Sullivan and the Phala Phala file
The day carried a second, unrelated strand that will outlive the Molefe argument. Per SABC News, Lebeya testified that private investigator Paul O'Sullivan approached him for an update on the Phala Phala investigation, at a time when the matter was classified, and that he refused: 'I can't report to any other person about the progress of matters in the DPCI.' He said he questioned why a person who was not a lawyer in the matter would be asking. He then added the detail that gives it weight. When O'Sullivan approached him, Lebeya said, O'Sullivan indicated that he was sitting with Dr Bejani Chauke, a political adviser to President Cyril Ramaphosa, and referred to him as a friend. Lebeya's own inference was cautious and pointed: 'I just felt somebody else was asking me to provide him with the status of the matter.' Neither O'Sullivan nor Chauke has answered this before the commission. It is one witness's untested account of a conversation, and both men are presumed innocent.
The Andrea Johnson affidavit, from the other end
In July 2026 the commission heard from retired Hawks Colonel Kobus Roelofse that a complaint about the then head of the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, Advocate Andrea Johnson, was taken to Lebeya, who raised it with the then National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi, and asked her to appoint an independent prosecutor; and that instead of a prosecutor being appointed, Johnson came to know both the complaint and the identity of the complainant. Per SABC News, Lebeya confirmed on Thursday that he discussed the allegations against Johnson with Batohi. That is a small line in a long day and it is the day's most useful piece of corroboration, because until now the Roelofse account of what Lebeya did was Roelofse's account. Johnson has denied the surrounding allegations; Batohi has not given evidence to this commission on the point; nothing here is a finding and both are presumed innocent.
Where it leaves the record
Lebeya is part-heard. The commission had not finished with him when the sitting rose, and the questions the panel has signalled since November 2025 - what Lebeya knew, who told him, and why an unexplained claim from a private businessman was enough to move Hawks units - have been answered in his own words for the first time but not yet tested against the officers who have already given a different emphasis. For the fifth consecutive sitting the commission's livestream carried no automatic captions, so this page is built from published reporting rather than the transcript. The day number and date come from the commission's own livestream title, 'Madlanga Commission of Inquiry Day 168, Thursday, 27 August 2026'; the official hearing row, with the confirmed witness and evidence leader, lands the following morning.
In their words
Key moments from the record
“I do not know Mr Katiso Molefe. I was not contacted by Mr Katiso Molefe; I was contacted by Malcolm X.”
“I directed two senior managers to verify the allegations about persons who were said to be claiming to be members of the DPCI and to have been sent by me. I have never instructed members of the DPCI to interrupt a legitimate police operation.”
“A reasonable national head who is aware of the existence of imposters will not sit back and do nothing.”
“The obligation is put on the provincial commissioner, so they shall have discussed with General Khumalo: let us inform the national head if needed.”
“I can't report to any other person about the progress of matters in the DPCI.”
“I just felt somebody else was asking me to provide him with the status of the matter.”
“I do not think we can come to the doctor's assistance.”
Our analysis
The bottom line
Day 168 is the day this commission stopped hearing about Godfrey Lebeya and started hearing from him. That distinction matters more here than in most of the record. Since October 2025 the Sandhurst raid has been reconstructed entirely from subordinates: the task team member who called it interference, the brigadier who said he sent two people, the major general who said he was phoned by the national head for the first time in his career and did not know where the claim came from. Every one of those accounts terminated in a phone call nobody in the room could explain. Thursday supplied the explanation. Whether it holds is now a question the panel can actually put.
The denial is narrow and it is well constructed. Lebeya did not say the Hawks were not there. He said he does not know Molefe, that he was called by a third party, that he asked for verification rather than intervention, and that a national head aware of impersonation has a duty to check. Each limb is defensible on its own and, on the public record, the Malcolm X limb is independently supported: the businessman told eNCA in July 2025 that he made the call, for Molefe's brother, to find out whether there was a warrant. The commission's problem is not with any single limb. It is with the whole: a private call, from a man met once in 2023, about a police operation, answered by moving armed units to the address rather than by asking the police whether the operation was theirs.
The protocol answer is the part of Thursday most likely to travel. By saying the provincial commissioner and Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo should have told him, Lebeya converts a personal allegation into an institutional one and puts the crime intelligence leadership on the wrong side of it. It is a genuine question - a national takedown that the national head of the Hawks learns about from a businessman is a coordination failure whoever is at fault - but it is also convenient, and the commission will weigh it knowing that. Nothing on this page decides which reading is right.
The O'Sullivan strand is the day's sleeper. It has nothing to do with Molefe and it puts a named presidential adviser in the room, on one witness's account, while a private investigator asks a Hawks head for the status of a classified investigation into the President's own farm. Lebeya's answer was to refuse, which is the answer the law requires, and his stated inference - that somebody else was really doing the asking - is exactly the kind of untested impression that a commission must handle carefully rather than repeat as fact. It is recorded here as his impression, not as a finding, and O'Sullivan and Chauke have not answered it.
The confirmation about Andrea Johnson and Shamila Batohi is short, unglamorous and evidentially valuable. In July the commission had a retired colonel's account of what Lebeya did with a complaint about the head of IDAC. It now has Lebeya's own confirmation that he took it to the National Director of Public Prosecutions. That closes a link in a chain the inquiry has been building for two months without pronouncing on the contested part of it, which is what happened to the complaint afterwards.
One structural point about the day, and it belongs on the page rather than in a footnote. A retired national head of the Hawks appeared before a commission of inquiry into police capture at his own cost, because the police service declined to fund him on the stated ground that his version differs from the version of other police witnesses. The commission was right that it cannot order the police to pay. Whether a funding rule that turns on agreement with other state witnesses can survive contact with an inquiry of this kind is a separate question, and it is a live one.
For the fifth sitting running the commission's livestream carried no captions. This archive has now built five consecutive hearing days from published reporting rather than the record itself. That is a real limit on how close to the transcript these pages can get, and it is stated here deliberately.
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.
Follow the threads
Who Lieutenant General Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya connects to
Katiso 'KT' Molefe
Lebeya is alleged to have caused Hawks units to be deployed to Molefe's Sandhurst home during his arrest on 6 December 2024. On Day 168 he denied knowing Molefe at all and said he was contacted by a third party. Untested; both are presumed innocent.
View profile →The general he says should have told himLieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo
On Day 168 Lebeya said the obligation to inform the national head of the operation to arrest Molefe sat with the provincial commissioner in consultation with Khumalo, and that he was never told. Khumalo has not answered that account before the commission; untested, both presumed innocent.
View profile →The complaint he took to the NDPPAdvocate Andrea Johnson
Evidence in July 2026 was that a misconduct complaint about Johnson reached Lebeya, who put it to then NDPP Shamila Batohi and asked for an independent prosecutor. On Day 168 Lebeya confirmed he discussed the allegations with Batohi. Untested; Johnson denies the surrounding allegations and is presumed innocent.
View profile →The other side of the Sandhurst operationLieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi
The 6 December 2024 arrest was carried out by the KwaZulu-Natal Political Killings Task Team, the unit at the centre of Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi's July 2025 allegations and of this commission's mandate. Lebeya's evidence is that the Hawks were verifying an impostor claim, not interfering. Untested.
View profile →Served under him at the DPCIMajor General Lesetja Senona
Senona was the provincial head of the KwaZulu-Natal Hawks while Lebeya was the national head, and the R200 million Port Shepstone cocaine theft the commission has examined since May 2026 happened on both their watches. The two men have now each given evidence to this commission. Nothing here is a finding and both are presumed innocent.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
- Advocate Sesi Baloyi
Sources
- Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, Day 168 livestream (27 August 2026) ↗
- EWN - Madlanga Commission: 'I do not know Mr Katiso Molefe' - Lebeya (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- EWN - Lebeya denies interference, questions protocol at Madlanga Commission (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- TimesLIVE - 'I do not know Katiso Molefe': ex-Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya at Madlanga commission (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- Business Day - 'I do not know Katiso Molefe': ex-Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya at Madlanga commission (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- eNCA - Lebeya denies knowing Katiso Molefe, says Malcolm X prompted Hawks response (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- SABC News - Lebeya says he refused O'Sullivan's Phala Phala information request (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - Madlanga commission tells ex-Hawks boss Lebeya it can't help in legal funding dispute (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- IOL - 'I don't know him': Lebeya says Malcolm X summoned him to Molefe raid (27 Aug 2026) ↗
- IOL - Lebeya's orders put Hawks units in the dark over KT Molefe's arrest (25 Nov 2025) ↗
- eNCA - EXCLUSIVE: Malcolm X: I called Lebeya directly (28 Jul 2025) ↗
- EWN - Hawks claim Batohi blocked probe into corruption head Andrea Johnson (11 Jul 2026) ↗