Hearing record
Day 18
Evidence led by Adv Matthew Chaskalson SC
Day 18 fell inside the commission's contested 'protected witness' stretch, when hearings alternated between open sessions and in-camera testimony shielding the identities of sources speaking to active crime-intelligence investigations. The week's evidence circled the conduct of the SAPS Crime Intelligence division and the WhatsApp record already placed before the panel.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Day 18 (23 October 2025) sat within week four of hearings, the period the commission set aside for a run of protected or anonymised witnesses.
- Evidence leaders had earlier told the panel that up to five 'secret' witnesses would be heard, with identities shielded but their evidence placed on the public record where possible.
- The arrangement followed a media challenge (Daily Maverick and News24) to fully closed hearings, resolved by a compromise that maximised public access while protecting witness safety.
- Testimony in this stretch kept returning to SAPS Crime Intelligence, its leadership, and WhatsApp communications already entered into evidence.
- The commission continued to weigh the tension between open justice and the physical safety of people speaking about live police investigations.
- No open-court witness was publicly named for this specific sitting; reporting on the day is limited by the in-camera protections in force.
- All individuals referenced in this period are presumed innocent; the evidence is untested allegation before the panel.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
Inside the protected-witness weeks
By late October the commission had settled into a rhythm of guarded testimony. After outlets challenged plans to sit entirely behind closed doors, chief evidence leader Adv Matthew Chaskalson SC set out a compromise: several witnesses would testify under protection, with their evidence aired publicly where it could be without exposing them. Corruption Watch, tracking the hearings week by week, described the balance the panel was trying to strike between transparency and keeping witnesses safe.
Crime Intelligence in the frame
The thread running through this phase was the conduct of SAPS Crime Intelligence and its head, Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo, whose earlier evidence about an alleged organised syndicate the panel had labelled the 'Big Five'. Witnesses speaking to active investigations were among those granted protection, and WhatsApp exchanges already before the commission continued to anchor questioning.
Our analysis
The bottom line
Days like this one are the hardest to reconstruct from the public record, and that is the point. The commission deliberately traded some visibility for the safety of people testifying about live investigations, so the open transcript is thinner than on days when a named officer takes the stand. Reporting the record honestly here means naming the shape of the proceedings rather than inventing detail the protections were designed to withhold.
The protected-witness weeks also show the commission managing a real institutional risk: if sources fear exposure, they do not come forward, and the inquiry loses the very evidence it exists to gather. The negotiated compromise with the media, allowing public access to evidence while masking identities, reads as an attempt to keep both the record open and the pipeline of witnesses intact. Whether that balance held is something later, fuller testimony would test.
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.
In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Adv Matthew Chaskalson SC
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)