Madlanga Commission hearing record
Day 3 of the Madlanga Commission
Witness: Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi
Evidence led by Advocate Mahlape Sello SC
In his third and final day of opening testimony, Mkhwanazi closes out the case he came to make, tying the disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team to his wider allegation of political interference and criminal infiltration of the SAPS.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Mkhwanazi concludes his opening evidence, having laid out both his central allegation and the material he says supports it.
- He maintains that the PKTT's disbandment was not a routine operational call but part of a pattern of interference.
- His testimony sets the agenda for the witnesses who follow, including SAPS National Commissioner Fannie Masemola.
- The commission is left with a framework of allegations against senior political and police figures still to be tested.
- All individuals implicated retain the presumption of innocence and the right to respond.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
Closing the opening case
Corruption Watch's summary of the commission's first week recorded that Mkhwanazi's evidence spanned the opening days before the inquiry moved on to other senior witnesses. By the close of his testimony he had placed on record a structured account linking the PKTT disbandment, alleged interference by the political executive and the claimed reach of organised crime into state institutions.
Setting up what follows
The Citizen and Corruption Watch noted that the strength of Mkhwanazi's account would now depend on corroboration. The immediate test would come from SAPS National Commissioner Fannie Masemola, who was next to give evidence and whose account of the same events would either support or undercut the picture Mkhwanazi had drawn.
Our analysis
The bottom line
By the end of his third day, Mkhwanazi had done what an opening witness in a commission is supposed to do: convert a public controversy into a set of specific, checkable claims. The question the inquiry now faced was no longer what he alleged, but whether others inside the SAPS would say the same under oath.
That is why the handover to Masemola was so consequential. A national commissioner corroborating even part of Mkhwanazi's account would move the allegations from the word of one provincial commissioner toward an institutional position. Until that happened, the fair reading remained that these were serious allegations awaiting the test of other evidence.
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 Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi connects to
Lieutenant General Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya
The 6 December 2024 arrest of Katiso Molefe was carried out by the KwaZulu-Natal Political Killings Task Team, the unit at the centre of Mkhwanazi July 2025 allegations. On Day 168 the retired Hawks national head told the commission the Hawks presence at the scene was verification of an impostor report, not interference. Untested; no finding has been made.
View profile →Named as the go-between in an alleged bid to implicate himMavuso Ntandane
Lieutenant-Colonel Deena Govender told the commission on Day 164 that Ntandane, described as close to Senzo Mchunu, pressed him to give evidence naming Mkhwanazi as the source of instructions for the KwaZulu-Natal shootings. The allegation is untested.
View profile →Subject of his allegationsSenzo Mchunu
Mkhwanazi alleged Mchunu disbanded the political killings task team to shield politically connected interests.
View profile →Corroborated byLieutenant-General Fannie Masemola
National Commissioner Masemola's early testimony largely supported Mkhwanazi's account of the task-team disbandment.
View profile →Implicated in his evidenceLieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya
Mkhwanazi named Sibiya among the senior officers he alleged interfered with investigations.
View profile →Named in his evidenceOupa 'Brown' Mogotsi
Mkhwanazi described Mogotsi as a conduit between the minister and an alleged cartel figure.
View profile →Distinct person, same surnameJulius Mkhwanazi
Frequently confused with him; Julius Mkhwanazi is the suspended EMPD deputy chief, an entirely different person.
View profile →Cited his prosecution as police infightingLieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo
Returning on Day 138 (13 July 2026), Mkhwanazi told the commission IDAC was being used by senior police in internal fights and pointed to the criminal charge against the Crime Intelligence head. IDAC investigator Brian Padayachee disputed his account. Competing accounts on the record, not findings.
View profile →The IPID evidence returns to his provinceLen Barnabas John
The commission exists because of Mkhwanazi's July 2025 allegations about criminal infiltration of policing in KwaZulu-Natal. On Day 157 IPID's provincial investigations chief Len John gave the first sustained account of what SAPS task teams in that province have been doing, covering 149 deaths between April 2023 and 31 May 2026. Untested; no finding either way.
View profile →Meeting confirmed by Matlala, contents withheldVusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala
On Day 160 Matlala confirmed he had met Mkhwanazi - reportedly in 2025, about the Medicare24 contract and a warrant of arrest - but claimed the privilege against self-incrimination over what was discussed. Mkhwanazi has denied any improper relationship with Matlala; untested either way.
View profile →The man he accused of misusing Crime Intelligence materialFadiel Adams
In his September 2025 evidence Mkhwanazi alleged that MP Fadiel Adams had obtained Crime Intelligence information he was not entitled to and used it recklessly to pursue charges against members of the Political Killings Task Team. The commission's Rule 3 notice of 3 October 2025 asked Adams to answer those allegations; Adams gave evidence over Days 162 to 164 (19 to 21 August 2026), which was taken up with his correspondence, his credibility and the section 27 referral rather than the substance of Mkhwanazi's allegation. It remains unanswered on the record. Untested; both presumed innocent.
View profile →The acting national commissioner who is said to have demanded an explanation from himLieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane
Per the Sowetan, Govender testified on Day 170 that Dimpane gave Mkhwanazi seven days to explain his June 2026 Pretoria media briefing, held while Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo was reporting to Brooklyn police station on an IDAC warrant. An internal SAPS process described by a third party from the witness box. Untested, and no allegation of wrongdoing against either officer.
View profile →The officer who says he was pressured to implicate himLieutenant-Colonel Deenadayalan Govender
On Day 164 Lieutenant-Colonel Deenadayalan Govender, the Hawks officer at the centre of the KwaZulu-Natal task-team allegations, testified that he was approached and pressured to give evidence implicating Mkhwanazi, and that suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu instructed him on a call to tell the commission that the police shootings had been carried out on Mkhwanazi's instructions. On Day 170 he put the figure at 172 extra-judicial shootings, dated the meeting to 20 August 2026 and said he recorded it: 'I know the minister's voice, I know it was him.' He also testified that acting national commissioner Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane had given Mkhwanazi seven days to explain the June 2026 Khumalo briefing, and that Mkhwanazi told him 'you were not supposed to know about this'. Untested; Mchunu denies it and all named are presumed innocent.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Advocate Mahlape Sello SC
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)