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Carrim is arrested at OR Tambo as he tries to leave the country, and the commission says it hopes the arrest 'will send a strong message to any witness who does not take the Commission seriously'
Two months after the Madlanga Commission laid criminal charges against him, businessman Suleiman Carrim was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport on the evening of Thursday 15 October 2026, moments before boarding an international flight, and appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court the following day. The commission published a statement by its spokesperson Jeremy Michaels on Friday 16 October headed 'MADLANGA COMMISSION WELCOMES ARREST OF MR SULIMAN CARRIM', welcoming 'the arrest of Mr Suliman Carrim at OR Tambo International Airport last (Thursday) night'. It sets out its own position on the offence: 'It is the Commission's view that Mr Carrim's conduct constituted one or more offences under the Commissions Act (8 of 1947) and the regulations applicable to the Commission', adding that he 'had also continuously failed to provide the Commission with information and documentation required under Regulation 10(6)'. It closes: 'The Commission trusts that Mr Carrim's arrest will send a strong message to any witness who does not take the Commission seriously.' Per the South African Police Service statement quoted by the Daily Maverick, the arrest was of 'a 49yr-old man at OR Tambo International Airport on Thursday evening, 15/10', taken 'moments before he was due to board an international flight', and police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said 'The suspect was arrested for failing to appear before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.' Per the Daily Maverick the arresting unit was the Commissions Recommendations Task Team. Per Sunday World the charge is contravening section 6(1) of the Commissions Act 8 of 1947. What happened in court is contested on the facts that matter. Per Business Day the investigating officer, Captain Kubayi, told the court Carrim was carrying five bags and a one-way ticket to Dubai with a final destination of Saudi Arabia; per the Mail and Guardian his legal team said he held a return ticket dated 28 October and was travelling on a religious pilgrimage, with his family. Per Sunday World the prosecutor, Advocate Donald Shiko, asked that the bail application stand down so the state could verify his addresses, pointing to properties in Johannesburg, Cape Town and the North West and arguing he was a flight risk, and questioned why a doctor would encourage travel but not attendance at the commission. Carrim answered for himself from the dock, per the same report: 'I was going to the pilgrimage, my doctor encouraged me to go', 'I have a condition, I black out and get panic attacks and the commission is aware of this', 'I always go to the pilgrimage, I did that for the past 17 years and I always come back', and 'I am not a criminal, I've never been arrested.' He was remanded in custody at Kgosi Mampuru and the bail proceedings were postponed to Monday 19 October 2026. Separately, and not before the court on Friday, Brigadier Mathe said he had been flagged by the police cold case unit on fraud and corruption allegations linked to the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality; per the Mail and Guardian and Business Day those matters are under investigation and are not the charge he appeared on. Two things should not be run together. The charge concerns non-appearance under a summons and nothing else: it is not a finding on the Medicare24 tender, the funding allegations, or anything else said about him at the commission, all of which remain untested. He has not pleaded, no court has convicted him of anything, and he is presumed innocent. The commission's statement spells his first name Suliman; this archive's canonical spelling, used across the record of his March 2026 evidence, is Suleiman.
OpenMADLANGA CARRIM
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenThe commission abandons its no-comment position and rejects the Cabonge allegations outright: 'false, incoherent', and no commissioner or evidence leader has ever met, spoken to or communicated with him
Two days after saying it would not comment further, the commission published a second statement on the same matter and went considerably further than the first. The primary document is a one-page statement of Thursday 15 October 2026 by the commission's spokesperson Jeremy Michaels, headed 'MADLANGA COMMISSION REJECTS ALLEGATIONS AS FALSE AND INCOHERENT', and it rejects 'outright the allegations purportedly made by Mr Serge Cabonge regarding a man who sits in front of the Madlanga Commission'. The commission explains why it broke its own silence. 'Ordinarily, the Commission would allow that process to take its course without further public comment. However, ongoing commentary in the public domain has necessitated a further and clearer response.' It states what was at stake in that commentary: 'The nature of the allegations and commentary suggesting that senior representatives of a judicial commission sought to interfere with a criminal investigation cannot simply be allowed to circulate as though they have a factual foundation.' Then the denial itself, in the commission's own words. 'The Commission wants to state clearly and categorically that the allegations are false, incoherent and are not supported by any facts.' 'None of the commissioners or evidence leaders have met, spoken to or know Mr Cabonge.' 'Neither has anyone on behalf of the Commission ever communicated with Mr Cabonge, whether directly or through an intermediary, concerning Mr Cabonge's appearance before the Commission.' It closes by urging South Africans 'to treat allegations of this nature with the necessary caution' and confirms that public hearings resume on 9 November 2026. Three things are worth stating plainly. The commission's own quotation of the claim, 'a man who sits in front of the Madlanga Commission', is the first time the wording has appeared on a commission document; the recording does not name that man, no outlet names him, and this archive does not speculate about who he might be. The statement of 13 October said the commission would engage Mr Cabonge and obtain his statement, and nothing published since withdraws that undertaking, so both positions now stand together: the allegations are rejected and the statement is still to be taken. And a denial by an institution about itself is not a judicial finding; it is the commission's answer, on the record, to a claim made by a man who has never given evidence to it. Cabonge has not testified, has not been charged in connection with any of this, and is presumed innocent.
OpenFannie Nkosi's criminal case is postponed to 5 November while the NPA decides whether to reduce or drop the charges, and he stays behind bars
The witness the commission knows as Witness F appeared in the Pretoria Magistrates Court on Thursday 15 October 2026 in his own criminal case, which has run alongside his evidence here since his arrest. Per Eyewitness News the matter was remanded to 5 November 2026 for the outcome of written representations his defence has made to the National Prosecuting Authority, in which he asks that the charges against him be reviewed, reduced or withdrawn. The prosecutor, Tholoana Sekhonyana, told the court 'The matter is on the roll for outcome of representations' and that 'The State is requesting that this matter be remanded to the 5th of November 2026'. Per Eyewitness News the charges on that roll are theft, fraud and defeating the ends of justice, and he remains in custody. That case began with a search of his Pretoria home on 2 April 2026; per the Mail and Guardian and News24 the task team reported finding firearms, ammunition, a stun grenade, SAPS dockets and other state-issued items on the premises, together with more than R50,000 in cash concealed beneath a mattress. He was denied bail in April 2026, the magistrate holding that he had not discharged the onus of showing his release would be in the public interest, and per the reporting his bail appeal was dismissed in the North Gauteng High Court on 3 June 2026. None of this has been tested at a trial. He has not pleaded to these charges, no court has convicted him of anything, representations to the NPA are a request and not an outcome, and he is presumed innocent. Nothing here is a finding by this commission, which has made none about him.
OpenSibiya's bail ruling finally gets a date: judgment reserved to Tuesday 20 October, and he stays in custody until then
The question left open when argument closed on 14 October has an answer. Per the Mail and Guardian, SABC News, IOL and Sunday World, magistrate Hleziphi Mkhasibe reserved judgment in the bail application of Shadrack Sibiya at the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 15 October 2026 and set it down for Tuesday 20 October, saying she needed more time to review the documents filed. He remains in custody until then. The positions put to her are the ones already on this record. Per the reporting, prosecutor Velile Makasana opposed bail, arguing the defence had not shown the state's case to be weak or that exceptional circumstances justified release, and that there was a risk he would flee, intimidate witnesses or interfere with evidence; the state also alleges he threatened the father of the 16-year-old he is accused of sexually grooming. Advocate Estelle Killian SC for the defence argued the state's evidence is weak, particularly on the human trafficking count, and the defence has offered bail of R20,000 and tendered his passport. He faces charges of rape, sexual grooming, human trafficking and firearms-related counts, which he denies. These criminal charges do not arise from the matters this commission is investigating. A bail ruling decides only whether he is held or released while the case proceeds; it decides nothing about guilt. He has not pleaded, no court has convicted him of anything, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenMadlanga Allegations
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenMADLANGA ALLEGATIONS
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenSibiya's bail argument closes after three weeks, with R20,000 offered, the whole prosecution called a trumped-up abuse of power, and no ruling yet
The part-heard bail application of Shadrack Sibiya, who resigned from the South African Police Service on 12 October 2026 and whose departure the service recorded as a dishonourable discharge, reached its end at the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 14 October 2026. Per Eyewitness News the defence delivered its closing argument, drawing to a close a hearing that has run for three weeks, and challenged the state's case that he would interfere with witnesses if released. Per TimesLIVE and Business Day his counsel, Advocate Amanda Nel, offered bail of R20,000, told the court he had tendered his passport, proposed that he be barred from contacting the complainants, and argued that the state had not shown sufficient grounds for his continued detention. Asked directly whether she was saying all the charges were trumped up, she answered 'Yes, we do say that', and put the defence case as 'everything is a trumped-up process with an abuse of power'. She also argued that the human trafficking count, which brings the matter under Schedule 6 of the Criminal Procedure Act and would oblige him to show exceptional circumstances before release, should not apply. Per the Daily Sun his legal team denied that he or his family had tried to intimidate the man the record calls Mr M, the father of the 16-year-old girl he is accused of sexually grooming, and the state's opposition rests on the safety of the complainants and the risk of interference with witnesses. These criminal charges do not arise from the matters this commission is investigating. No bail ruling has been given, no outlet this archive has read reports a date for one, he has not pleaded, no court has convicted him of anything, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya's bail application runs on at Randburg, with the complainant's father asking the court to investigate threats and a recorded call in which a businessman denies moving money between Sibiya and Matlala
The part-heard bail application of Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, the former deputy national police commissioner who resigned from the police service the previous day, continued at the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 13 October 2026. Per Sowetan and TimesLIVE the day's document was an affidavit from the man the record calls Mr M, the father of the 16-year-old girl Sibiya is accused of sexually grooming, read into the record by the prosecutor, Advocate Velile Makhasana. In it, per Sowetan, Mr M says: 'When I confronted him about my daughter's allegations he became angry, stating that he knows me and my entire family', and asks the court for something specific, 'I know what Gen Sibiya is capable of, and I am asking the police to investigate the threats made by him.' Per Eyewitness News the same affidavit says 'this was not the first time that General Sibiya had threatened me' and that 'he has told me that he could harm and wipe out my entire family'. The outlets differ on which day that affidavit was read: Eyewitness News, publishing at 08:55 on the Tuesday, places it at Monday 12 October; IOL places it at the Tuesday sitting; TimesLIVE dates neither. This archive records the split rather than choosing. What is common to all of them is that the application did not finish and no bail ruling was given. Per Sowetan it stands over to Wednesday 14 October 2026. The part of the day that touches this commission is a recording. Per Eyewitness News and Sowetan the court was played a phone call between Mr M and a Congolese businessman named Serge Cabonge, in which Cabonge denies being an intermediary between Sibiya and Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala: 'Me, Cat, and Sibiya never did anything. I've never collected money from Cat to give to Sibiya.' That is a denial, volunteered on a recording made by a private party and played in a bail hearing, not evidence before this commission and not a finding by anyone. Per Sowetan the same 25-minute call also carried an account by Cabonge of having once helped get charges withdrawn for a family, in which he described the person involved as having been 'a judge president in one of the biggest courts' and did not name them; no outlet identifies that person and this archive does not speculate about who it might be. Nothing on this page is a finding. Sibiya denies the criminal charges and the allegations made about him before this commission, Cabonge denies being any sort of conduit, Matlala denies the allegations against him, no court has convicted any of them of anything arising from this, and all are presumed innocent.
OpenDay 183 is numbered for the acting head of the country's intelligence coordinating body, and his evidence comes off the roll the night before
The commission numbered Tuesday 13 October 2026 as Day 183 and published no title, no summary, no video and a thumbnail file named 'CONTENT NOT AVAILABLE' for it - the same shape it gave Day 182, the first sitting of the closed-door block. The day had been set down for Dr Ntandazo Sifolo, acting coordinator of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, the statutory body meant to pull the country's civilian, military and police intelligence structures into a single assessment for the executive. He would have been the most senior intelligence official this commission has called. Per The Citizen and SABC News, both of 13 October 2026, the commission's own evidence leaders had applied under Rule 4.2 of the commission's rules for his evidence to be heard in camera and for his testimony, recordings, transcripts and supporting documents to be kept confidential. The ground is new on this record. Every previous closed-door application here - Witness P, Witness M, Witness S, Lieutenant-Colonel Govender - rested on danger to a person. Per The Citizen the supporting affidavit for this one, deposed by an attorney acting for the commission, rests on paper: his evidence 'relates to classified material which has been declassified for use by the Commission' and not for public dissemination. Per both outlets he was expected to address the relationship between the committee and the other intelligence and security structures, the handling of organised crime threats, and the alleged infiltration of the criminal justice system. The chairperson had not ruled on the application, and media houses wanting to oppose it have until Thursday 15 October 2026 to do so in writing. Then, late on the Monday night and before either the ruling or the opposition deadline, the appearance went away. Per The Citizen the commission's spokesperson Jeremy Michaels said that 'Dr Sifolo's testimony is no longer scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday) and will be heard on a date to be determined by the Chairperson.' No reason for the postponement has been published by the commission or by any outlet this archive has read, and this archive supplies none. Whether anything else was heard behind the closed door that day is not on the public record either: the commission's standing position, given on 8 October, is that it will not release details of the appearances of in camera witnesses. Nothing here is a finding and nothing here is an allegation. No wrongdoing has been alleged against Dr Sifolo on this commission's record. He is a witness the evidence leaders want to hear, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe commission publishes nine in camera rulings and applications at once, reaching back to June, including the order that governed Day 182 and the chairperson's full reasons against Sindane
For three sweeps this archive has recorded, as an open item, that the rulings governing this commission's closed sittings were being announced through media statements and never published. On Tuesday 13 October 2026, between 14:35 and 15:58 UTC, nine of them arrived on the commission's own document feed in just over an hour, with no covering note and no announcement. Every one is a ruling or an in camera application, and every one is dated weeks or months before the day it was published. The oldest is a two-page ruling from Day 129, 30 June 2026, directing that the testimony of Witness L be heard in camera with fuller reasons to follow. The newest is the order of 2 October 2026 that set up Day 182, which until today existed on the public record only as reporting of what the commission said about it. In between are the chairperson's five pages of written reasons for refusing Oupa Jossiah Sindane a postponement, dated 26 September 2026; the one-page ruling of 25 September itself; the evidence leaders' notice of motion of 18 September to have Major-General Feroz Khan's questioning heard in camera; the directions of 21 August 2026 that governed Lieutenant-Colonel Deenadayalan Govender's in camera application and set the timetable for media opposition; the in camera application of Witness P from 12 August 2026, circulated to all media with 24 hours to oppose; the redacted in camera application bundle of Witness M from 6 July 2026, brought for an unidentified witness in the drug busts stream; and Khan's own in camera application of 3 July 2026. Two of them change what the public record says. The Khan order calls him Mr Feroz Khan rather than Major-General, directs that his questioning on the evidence led in private on 7 and 9 July 2026 be heard in camera on 6 October, directs him to file his statement 'by 12 midday on Saturday 3 October 2026', names the evidence leaders permitted in the room as Advocate Adila Hassim SC and Advocate Thabang Pooe, and provides for him to testify 'in camera and remotely' - the format his representative had argued for on 28 September and which the chairperson's refusal of a postponement had been reported as denying him. The Sindane reasons carry the hardest judicial language on this record about a witness's conduct: that he 'sat idly by for a considerable length of time and only brought the High Court and postponement applications at the 11th hour', that 'an inference is inescapable that what galvanised him into action was his looming appearance before the Commission', that the commission's attorneys set an 18 September deadline he missed so that 'effectively, then, the postponement was sought at the Commission's prompting', and that 'if there ever was a most egregious form of inordinate delay, this is it'. They also contain a warning aimed past Sindane at every witness still to come: 'The extension is not meant to accommodate witnesses who, through tardiness or for other unjustifiable reasons, are unable to testify before the Commission as required.' Nothing in any of these documents is a finding on an underlying allegation. They are procedural orders about how and where evidence is heard. Everyone named in them is presumed innocent.
OpenThe document backfill carries on past the nine rulings, and one of the six new files is a full sitting day's transcript containing the Witness J ruling delivered from the bench
The nine in camera rulings the commission published on 13 October 2026 were not the end of the backfill. Six more documents followed, five of them reaching back as far as May and June. Three concern Witness J, the witness heard on Day 121. The commission's Rule 4 notice of 15 June 2026, served on William de Klerk Attorneys acting for Daily Maverick and News24 and on all media, gave 24 hours to oppose an application 'Directing that the testimony of a further, unidentified witness, in the Drug Busts Stream scheduled for 17 - 19 June 2026 be heard in-camera', and the covering letter of 17 June put the ruling deadline at the Thursday. The third file is not a ruling at all but the full 143-page transcript of Day 121, Thursday 18 June 2026, published twice over under two different titles and identical to the byte. It carries the ruling verbatim, and the verbatim is worth having. Advocate Thabang Pooe told the chairperson that the application was unusual in a way no reporting recorded: 'This application is not brought by the Evidence Leaders, but is brought by the witness himself, but is supported by the Evidence Leaders.' Every other closed-door application on this archive's record was moved by the commission's own team. She also recorded that notice went out later than the 72 hours previously agreed, that one media house opposed, and that the opposition was settled by negotiation rather than ruled on, the commission undertaking to give the media a redacted transcript. The chairperson said he had 'looked closely at the affidavit filed in support of the application', was 'satisfied that there is substance in the application', and made a three-part order: that the testimony be heard in camera, that the evidence leaders make a transcript available to the media 'by no later than Monday, 22 June 2026', and that it be redacted to protect Witness J's identity and the integrity of ongoing investigations. A fourth file is the evidence leaders' in camera application for Witness N, dated 9 July 2026 and brought for the witness scheduled for 10 July 2026, the day the official spine numbers Day 137. Its supporting affidavit describes her without identifying her: an adult female detective in the South African Police Service, holding the rank of Sergeant, a member of the Political Killings Task Team deployed to the Eastern Cape to investigate matters relating to the University of Fort Hare, and also a detective in the KwaZulu-Natal Anti-Corruption Unit. It says her evidence concerns information she received about alleged criminal conduct by a redacted senior investigator at the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, and that she was introduced around January 2026, while on unrelated Eastern Cape investigations, to a redacted foreign national who had a complaint. The sixth file is the Mogotsi recusal bundle, recorded separately. Every one of these is a procedural order or application about how and where evidence is heard. None is a finding on any underlying allegation, the person named only as a redaction in the Witness N affidavit has not been identified and is not identified here, and everyone concerned is presumed innocent.
OpenThe papers behind the only attempt to remove this commission's chief evidence leader are published five months after the application failed, and they are harsher on both sides than the reporting was
On 15 May 2026 the chairperson dismissed Oupa 'Brown' Mogotsi's application to have Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC removed as chief evidence leader, and that dismissal was reported the same day. What was never published was the bundle. On 13 October 2026 it arrived on the commission's document feed: 273 pages, redacted, carrying the notice of motion, Mogotsi's founding affidavit, his annexed WhatsApp material, the commission legal team's answering affidavit, Chaskalson's own answering affidavit running to more than a hundred pages, transcript extracts of Mogotsi's November 2025 evidence, two confirmatory affidavits from commission investigators and a replying affidavit. The notice of motion, dated 29 April 2026, asked for two orders: 'That the Commission respectfully order the recusal of Adv. Matthew Chaskalson SC as Evidence Leader in these proceedings' and 'That an independent person be appointed as Evidence Leader in relation to the Applicant's evidence.' The founding affidavit puts the ground as 'actual bias and/or a reasonable apprehension of bias' and relies on the standard Constitutional Court line on recusal, SARFU, De Lacy, S v Basson, Bernert and Mulaudzi, while conceding at paragraph 4.3 that Chaskalson 'is not the presiding officer'. Its central allegation is a sentence it says was spoken on a call on the night of 9 March 2026, during the testimony of businessman Suleiman Carrim: 'Get me anything against Sulliman and I will help you.' Chaskalson's answer denies it in terms. 'I have never suggested to Mr Mogotsi that he should give false evidence to implicate Mr Carrim', he says, and 'In over thirty years of practice, I have never suggested to any witness that s/he should give false evidence to a Commission, a Court, or any other tribunal', and 'I also deny that I ever offered to protect Mr Mogotsi from adverse findings by the Commission if he could implicate Mr Carrim. I would never offer any witness a quid pro quo for implicating another witness.' His account is that the offer to provide evidence against Carrim 'first came from Mr Mogotsi himself, unsolicited by me'. The commission legal team's answering affidavit, deposed by Madimpe Mogashoa, makes a point of constitutional shape that is worth preserving whatever becomes of the rest: 'An evidence leader is not the Commission. He does not decide admissibility, credibility, liability, culpability, reputation, or the content of the Commission's report. He assists the Commission. The Chairperson remains the decision-maker.' It calls the application 'legally misconceived, factually fraudulent', alleges that the WhatsApp record annexed to the founding affidavit had been selectively stripped of three calls on the night of 9 March at 21h32, 21h33 and 21h36, three calls during the lunch adjournment in Carrim's testimony on 10 March, three 'crying with laughter' emojis sent at 13h18 that day and a message of 12 March, and asks for three orders: dismissal, that Mogotsi make his phone available for forensic imaging if he persists, and that his conduct 'be referred to the South African Police Service for investigation of possible criminal offences, including perjury, forgery, wilful obstruction or hindrance of the Commission in contravention of section 5 of the Commissions Act, 1947, and contravention of Regulation 12(1) of the Regulations of this Commission.' Only the first of those three was reported at the time. The application was dismissed. Nothing on the public record says the referral was ever made, and no such charge has been brought. Everything in this bundle is one party's version answered by another party's version in an application that failed; none of it is a finding against anybody, and Mogotsi, who is in custody on unrelated charges, is presumed innocent.
OpenThe commission answers a recording from a bail hearing within hours, confirming it will take a statement from the businessman heard on it and that the recording mentions the commission itself
This commission almost never responds to something said outside its own chamber, and when it does it takes days. On Tuesday 13 October 2026, hours after a recording was played at Shadrack Sibiya's bail application in the Randburg Magistrate's Court, it published a one-page statement by its spokesperson Jeremy Michaels. The statement says the commission 'has noted the voice recordings attributed to Mr Serge Cabonge in the bail hearing of Mr Shadrack Sibiya in the Randburg Magistrate's Court today', records that 'Mr Cabonge has previously been mentioned at hearings before the Commission', and commits the commission to a step: it 'will engage with Mr Cabonge and obtain his statement as part of its broad investigation into matters falling within its terms of reference and his mention of the Commission in the recording'. It then closes with 'The Commission will not comment further on this matter at this stage.' Three things follow from the primary text and nothing more. The first is procedural: the commission's own dating places the recording in court on the Tuesday, which is also the day the state played it. The second is that the commission confirms, in its own words, that the recording carries a mention of the commission. The third is what the statement conspicuously does not do. It endorses no claim on the recording, accepts nothing in it as true, and names no one. Per News24, IOL and the Mail and Guardian the call runs about twenty-five minutes between Cabonge and the man the record calls Mr M, the father of the 16-year-old girl Sibiya is accused of sexually grooming, with the investigating officer, Sergeant Nokukhanya Ndlovu, called to identify the speakers. On it Cabonge denies ever having been a conduit between Sibiya and Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, alleges the two dealt through suspended Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, alleges that Sibiya received money from Matlala and that Sibiya threatened him, and, per Business Day and Sowetan, describes having once helped a man he places as someone who 'sits in the front at the Madlanga commission' and who was then 'a judge president in one of the biggest courts'. The recording does not name that man. No outlet names that man. Per the Mail and Guardian the identity of the person allegedly offering him protection, and the truth of the claims, have not been established. This archive records that the claims were made and that nobody has been identified, and it speculates about no one. Everything on the recording is an untested assertion by a man who has not given evidence to this commission, made on a privately made call and played to argue a bail point. Sibiya, Matlala and Nkosi all deny the allegations made against them, Cabonge has not been charged in connection with any of this, and every person named here is presumed innocent.
OpenSamuel Mashaba, the Gauteng traffic chief the chairperson told 'you are being untruthful', has died with the commission's findings on him still to be made
Chief Provincial Inspector Samuel Mashaba, the head of the Gauteng Traffic Police who gave three days of evidence to this commission on the 2021 Aeroton cocaine bust, died on Tuesday 13 October 2026. Per The Citizen and TimesLIVE he died at Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg while receiving medical care, TimesLIVE naming it as Netcare Milpark. Neither outlet states a cause, and no cause of death had been disclosed at the time of their reporting; this archive does not infer one. Per The Citizen the death was confirmed by the Gauteng Provincial Government through its Department of Community Safety. Premier Panyaza Lesufi's words, per both outlets: 'On behalf of the Gauteng Provincial Government, I wish to convey our deepest condolences to the Mashaba family', and 'Our thoughts and prayers are with them.' The provincial government's spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, added: 'The Gauteng Provincial Government wishes the Mashaba family strength and comfort.' Per TimesLIVE he had been placed on precautionary suspension following his appearance before this commission in June 2026, pending a formal disciplinary process, after admissions made during the inquiry about conduct that may have amounted to serious misconduct; the provincial government described the circumstances of that suspension and his appearance as 'part of an ongoing public process'. That 2026 precautionary suspension is a different thing from the three-month suspension he told the commission he received after his 2021 arrest, and this archive keeps the two apart rather than merging them. What his death does to the record is the part that matters here. He testified on Days 117 to 119 in June 2026, denied all the allegations against him, and on his final day chairperson Mbuyiseli Madlanga told him directly, 'you are being untruthful'. The commission has made no finding about him, the disciplinary process against him was never completed, and the NPA had already withdrawn the Aeroton criminal case against the four men arrested at the scene. Every allegation concerning him therefore remains exactly what it was: untested. He answered what was put to him from the witness box and he cannot answer anything further, and nothing said about him here or elsewhere has been determined against him.
OpenMadlanga Cabonge
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenDay 183
The second numbered sitting of the closed-door block was set down for the most senior intelligence official the commission has yet called, and his evidence did not start. Dr Ntandazo Sifolo, acting coordinator of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, the body that is supposed to pull the country's intelligence structures into one picture, was down to begin testifying on Tuesday. Per The Citizen and SABC News the commission's evidence leaders had applied under Rule 4.2 of the commission's rules for his evidence to be heard in camera, and for his testimony, recordings, transcripts and supporting documents to be kept confidential. Per The Citizen the supporting affidavit, deposed by an attorney acting for the commission, says his evidence 'relates to classified material which has been declassified for use by the Commission' and not for public dissemination, and that he is expected to deal with the relationship between the committee and the other intelligence and security structures, the handling of organised crime threats, and the alleged infiltration of the criminal justice system. The chairperson had not ruled on the application, and media houses wanting to oppose it have until Thursday 15 October to say so in writing. Then, late on the Monday night, the appearance went away. Per The Citizen the commission's spokesperson Jeremy Michaels said that 'Dr Sifolo's testimony is no longer scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday) and will be heard on a date to be determined by the Chairperson.' No reason for the postponement has been published. What the commission did instead, on the same Tuesday, was open a filing cabinet: nine rulings and in camera applications reaching back to 30 June 2026 were published to its document feed in just over an hour that afternoon, among them the order that governed Day 182 and the chairperson's full written reasons for refusing Oupa Sindane a postponement. Nothing on this page is a finding. Dr Sifolo has given no evidence to this commission, nothing has been alleged against him on this record, and everyone named here is presumed innocent.
OpenIPID searched the home and the office of the Hawks officer at the centre of the KwaZulu-Natal task team evidence
The hit squad stream of this commission's evidence has produced its first search warrant. Per the Daily Maverick and IOL, both of Monday 12 October 2026, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate executed a search warrant on Friday 9 October 2026 at the residence and the workplace of Lieutenant-Colonel Deenadayalan 'Deena' Govender, head of the Hawks' KwaZulu-Natal provincial tracing team and the officer who commanded the cash-in-transit task team at the centre of IPID's evidence to this commission. IPID's spokesperson gave both outlets the same confirmation and no more: 'Ipid executed a search warrant at the premises of a Hawks official on Friday. Our investigations are ongoing.' On what was taken the two accounts differ in a way worth preserving. The Daily Maverick reports that investigators are said to have seized several electronic devices, and attributes that to a social media post rather than to IPID; IOL reports that the spokesperson did not disclose whether investigators had seized anything at all. Neither outlet names the offences under investigation, and neither names the court that issued the warrant. The evidence the search follows is on this archive's record already: IPID's deputy director for investigations in KwaZulu-Natal, Len Barnabas John, told the commission on Day 157 that the majority of the cash-in-transit shootings IPID examined involved a task team under Govender's command, and alleged payments into his accounts; Gregory Loftus gave the commission the account of one of those deaths on Day 158; and on Days 164 and 170 Govender answered from the stand, denying the allegations, saying he was not in command of the operation in which Bevan Loftus and four others were killed, and alleging in turn that he had been pressured to give evidence implicating Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. A search warrant is an investigative step. It is not a charge, it is not a finding, and nothing in it has been tested by any court. Govender has not been charged with anything arising from this, he denies the allegations made about him before the commission, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya resigns as his hearing opens, and the police service records his exit as a dishonourable discharge
The Regulation 9 disciplinary hearing this archive had down for Monday 12 October 2026 sat, and lasted long enough for one document to be handed up. Per the Mail and Guardian, The Citizen, Eyewitness News, IOL and Sunday World, Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya's legal representative tendered his resignation shortly after the hearing opened, and the South African Police Service terminated his employment with immediate effect the same day. Three sentences of the police statement carry it. 'The disciplinary hearing against Lieutenant General Sibiya sat this morning.' 'The SAPS confirms that Lieutenant-General Sibiya's employment with the Service has been terminated with immediate effect.' And the classification that does the work: 'As the former senior officer had an ongoing disciplinary case against him at the time of his resignation, his departure from the Service is therefore regarded as a dishonourable discharge.' The Citizen and Sunday World attribute the statement to the national police spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe; Eyewitness News attributes it to the acting national commissioner, Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane. This archive records both attributions rather than choosing between them. Per Eyewitness News the departure 'may not be treated as an ordinary resignation and could result in the loss of certain benefits'; which benefits, and on what authority, no outlet states. What the hearing would have heard is already on this archive's record: the second of three disciplinary notices served on him, the expedited one arising from this commission's own evidence, running to seven counts of misconduct over cash, 20 impalas, a shared warrant of arrest and a promised promotion, to be presided over by Limpopo provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Jan Scheepers. None of those counts was heard, and none was decided. What is not on the public record is what becomes of them. No outlet this archive has read, and no police statement, says whether the Regulation 9 counts, the first notice set down for 2 to 6 and 10 to 20 November 2026, the third notice served on him on 30 September, or his urgent Labour Court application to halt the disciplinary process survive the end of his employment. That question is open and this archive does not answer it by inference. Two things are worth stating plainly about what this is not. A dishonourable discharge here is an employer's classification of how a resignation was taken, applied because a case was pending; it is not a disciplinary finding, because no finding was made. And the resignation ends an employment relationship and nothing else: he remains in custody at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, and his part-heard bail application in the separate criminal matter resumes in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 13 October 2026. He denies the allegations made about him at this commission and the charges in the criminal case, no court has convicted him of anything, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe ruling that closed the door on Witness S reaches the public record, and it is dated the day the commission said he had already been heard
The order this archive recorded as missing has arrived. On Friday 9 October 2026 the commission published the ruling in the application of its evidence leaders against Witness S and, as second respondent, 'various media houses'. This archive holds the document: two pages, issued 'at the direction of the Chairperson', dated at Pretoria on 8 October 2026, by order of Justice R M Madlanga and signed by the Commission Secretary, Dr N Vukuza. Per The Citizen, which reported it on the morning of 9 October, the chairperson ruled that Witness S will be heard in closed session. Six things are ordered. The evidence leaders' 'non-compliance with the Rules of the Commission regarding the timeframes set for the making of in-camera applications is condoned', which is the commission recording for the first time that the 1 October application was brought out of time. The appearance of Witness S 'and the leading of Witness S' evidence, shall be held in camera'. That appearance 'shall be on a date determined by the Chairperson'. No person may 'directly or indirectly publish the identity of Witness S or in any manner publicly disclose the details or occupation of the witness in such a manner that the witness becomes easily identifiable'. Attendance is confined to the chairperson and commissioners, the evidence leaders, designated attorneys and candidate attorneys from Diale Mogashoa Attorneys, and the commission's IT personnel, secretary and document manager. And the proceedings, 'including any transcript, recording, or documentation', are confidential, with publication barred unless the chairperson authorises it. Two of those deserve naming plainly. The attendance list admits no representative for Witness S himself, where the 2 October ruling that closed the room for Major-General Feroz Khan admitted Khan's representatives; and the commission's own attorneys are in the room with the witness, which is the answer to the question of who sits beside a witness nobody can see. The date on the order is the difficulty. The commission's spokesperson, Jeremy Michaels, said on Thursday 8 October that the commission 'has so far heard in camera testimony from Witness S', and the witness had been set down for Wednesday 7 October, yet the written order of 8 October speaks of an appearance still to be scheduled. This archive cannot resolve that from the public record and does not guess at it: the order may reduce to writing a direction the chairperson gave earlier, or the appearance it sets down may be a further one. What is now settled is that the closed door of that week rests on a published ruling and not on an application whose outcome nobody had seen. Nothing in this order is a finding about anyone, and no part of Witness S's evidence is public. This archive is itself bound by paragraph 4 and publishes nothing about the witness beyond what the commission has put out under its own name.
OpenIn-Camera Ruling, Witness S
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenThe seven misconduct counts Sibiya answers on Monday, and the Limpopo commissioner who will chair the hearing this commission produced
The disciplinary hearing that moved to Monday 12 October 2026 has a charge sheet, and on Thursday 8 October 2026 the Sunday Times published it. Per the Sunday Times and TimesLIVE, which report that the Sowetan has seen the document, suspended deputy national commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya faces seven counts of misconduct arising from evidence heard at this commission. The first alleges that in January 2024 at police head office in Pretoria he breached regulations aimed at preventing and combating criminal activities by accepting a gift of R500,000 from alleged cartel figure Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala without the national commissioner's authorisation, 'an act which involves an element of dishonesty'. The second alleges a further R300,000 from Matlala at his Pretoria residence in September 2024. The third alleges he received 20 impalas from Matlala in March 2024. The fourth alleges that in December 2024 he acted improperly and disgracefully by persuading Matlala to pursue a case against members of the political killings task team who had raided Matlala's home. The fifth alleges that in October 2024 he acted improperly by instructing that a warrant of arrest containing the personal information of the blogger Musa Khawula be shared. The sixth alleges he shared confidential information with Sergeant Fannie Nkosi without authorisation, and the seventh that he promised Nkosi a promotion or a placement in a narcotics project. The money counts are independently corroborated: News24 of 6 October puts them together as R800,000 and the 20 impalas, and reports that he faces three separate disciplinary notices in all. Per the Mail and Guardian the hearing will be presided over by Limpopo provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Jan Scheepers, a name TimesLIVE gives in full as Lieutenant-General Jan Petrus Scheepers, and one of the three internal matters remains set down for 2 to 6 and 10 to 20 November 2026. Per the Sunday Times the national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said of Monday's postponement that 'the matter has been postponed to October 12 to allow him an opportunity to consult with his legal representatives in preparation for the hearing'. His own answer is that custody is the obstacle. In his Labour Court affidavit, per TimesLIVE, he accepted that the commission's allegations should be investigated but said 'detention means I cannot arrange my own movements, access my seized devices, assemble records at an office, or consult whenever the demands of the disciplinary case require', and that his complaint is that 'the disciplinary timetable must accommodate the practical consequences of those restrictions'. Keep the processes apart, because they are separate. A disciplinary charge sheet is an employer's allegation and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged before this commission. The allegations in it are untested, he denies wrongdoing, the criminal case against him in the Randburg Magistrate's Court arises from an entirely different subject matter and resumes on 13 October, no court or presiding officer has found anything against him, and he and everyone named here are presumed innocent.
OpenWhat Khan's closed-door evidence will have to answer: an IT Treasury contract kickback allegation, the 2021 Aeroton bust, and the former IDAC head
Dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan still has no new date, but on Thursday 8 October 2026 the commission's own spokesperson set out what the evidence he owes it is expected to cover. Per SABC News and the Daily Sun, Jeremy Michaels said Khan has been implicated in allegations involving an IT Treasury contract kickback and the Aeroton drug bust that took place in the south of Johannesburg in 2021, and that the commission heard allegations earlier this year concerning Khan's relationship with the former head of the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, Advocate Andrea Johnson. Per the Daily Sun his testimony is expected to address evidence previously heard by the commission in his absence. All three threads are already on this archive's record, and the value of Thursday's statement is that the commission itself now names them as the ones his evidence has to answer. The 2021 Aeroton cocaine consignment is the case file this commission spent Days 126 to 128 on. The Johnson thread was put up in July 2026 by a witness who alleged that the then IDAC head had protected Khan from prosecution. And the IT contract is the allegation this archive has carried since 2 October from Sowetan, which reported a commission investigator's allegation about a National Treasury information technology contract and a company called Smada; what is added on 8 October is the commission's own characterisation of it as a kickback. No detail of that count has been published, and Khan has never answered it, or anything else, from the witness box. His position is otherwise unchanged from 6 October: the chairperson's 28 September finding of 'a flagrant disregard of a subpoena by this commission' stands, as does the direction to lay criminal charges over the failure to attend. A referral is not a charge, a charge is not a conviction, and he is presumed innocent of every allegation named here.
OpenThe commission says Witness S has been heard behind the closed door, and that it will publish nothing at all about who goes in next
For three sitting days the closed fortnight produced no public word about what was happening inside it. On Thursday 8 October 2026 the commission broke that silence just far enough to say that it will not be breaking it again. Per SABC News and the Daily Sun, the commission's spokesperson Jeremy Michaels confirmed that the commission 'has so far heard in camera testimony from Witness S, a Crime Intelligence officer', and that nothing further about the closed sittings will be released: 'Due to security considerations, the commission will not be releasing details of the appearances of in-camera witnesses.' Per both outlets the in camera process runs for the remainder of this week and next week, and public hearings resume on 9 November 2026. Two things this confirms, and one it still does not. It confirms that the sitting of Wednesday 7 October, which this archive recorded as resting on an application whose outcome had never been published, produced evidence: the commission itself now says Witness S has testified. It confirms that the commission intends to publish no schedule of in camera appearances at all, so the public record of this fortnight will stay a record of its own absence until the commission chooses to release what it safely can. And as at that statement it still did not include any ruling on the evidence leaders' 1 October in camera application, which no outlet had reported: a confirmation that evidence was heard is not a published ruling on how it came to be heard behind a closed door. The ruling itself reached the public record the next day, dated 8 October 2026, and this archive holds it. None of Witness S's evidence is on the public record, and nothing here is a finding about anyone.
OpenParliament's committee finishes a 790-page draft on the same allegations, and its chair says it would not recommend investigating people it could not make findings about
The National Assembly inquiry running in parallel with this commission has finished deliberating. Per eNCA on Thursday 8 October 2026, the Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Allegations made by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has concluded its deliberations on a draft report of 790 pages, working to a 30 October 2026 deadline it reached through a sixth extension. Per TimesLIVE the final deliberations ran at a virtual meeting on the evening of Wednesday 7 October, a year and a day after the committee's public hearings opened with Mkhwanazi as its first witness. Its chairperson, Molapi Soviet Lekganyane, put it as 'This has been a marathon' and told members to 'dust ourselves off and move forward'. On the limit of what the committee was willing to do, he said: 'Where we don't have reasonable findings, we cannot recommend that a person be investigated.' DA member Damien Klopper said: 'I hope this report will make a difference in the lives of South Africans.' Per TimesLIVE the draft goes next week to the people it implicates for their right of reply, and they have three weeks to answer before the final report is submitted to the National Assembly. That arithmetic does not close: a reply period opening next week and running three weeks ends after 30 October, and neither outlet reports how the committee intends to meet the deadline it has been given. Per eNCA the matters the deliberations covered include alleged corruption and police misconduct, the R228-million South African Police Service healthcare contract awarded to a company linked to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, the non-appearance before the committee of former Crime Intelligence head Major-General Feroz Khan, and the access of member Fadiel Adams to classified information. This archive is publishing the state of the process and not its findings. The report is a draft that has not been adopted or tabled, the committee has asked its own members not to discuss it until the Speaker tables it, and a parliamentary finding is not a criminal verdict in any event. Everyone named in it is presumed innocent, and nothing here has been determined against any person.
OpenCancelling the Matlala health contract cost the police 5,500 recruits, Parliament is told: no medical screening, no February intake
The R360 million tender at the financial centre of this commission has produced a consequence nobody at the commission has had to account for, and it was put to Parliament on Wednesday 7 October 2026. Per SABC News and Eyewitness News, police management briefing Parliament's police portfolio committee on the 2025/26 annual report told members that the South African Police Service could not enlist its new intake for that financial year because the contract with Medicare24 Tshwane District, the company linked to alleged cartel figure Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, had been terminated and the mandatory pre-enlistment medical assessments could not be done. SABC News puts the shortfall put to the committee at more than five thousand officers and Eyewitness News puts it at 5,500, and the figures the committee was given check out against each other: a deferred intake of 5,500 added to this year's own 5,500 is the 11,000 trainee target the service now says it carries. Per SABC News, Major-General Leon Rabie told the committee: 'Over a million applications were received, and recruitment was completed for 6,125 candidates with funding secured. However, the February enlistment could not proceed because the health risk manager's contract was terminated and a mandatory medical assessment could not be completed.' Per the same report the deferred intake has been rolled into the current financial year, taking this year's target to 11,000 trainees, and the South African National Defence Force will do the medical screening in the meantime. Two points of framing. This is not an allegation against anyone: it is the police service accounting to Parliament for a target it missed, and the cause it gives is the absence of a health risk manager rather than any person's conduct. And it is the first time this archive can record a cost of the Medicare24 affair that is measured in police officers rather than in rands. The R360 million contract, advertised at that figure and paid about R228 million before SAPS cancelled it on a finding that the supply chain process had been abused, is the subject of a criminal prosecution in which all charges are untested; Matlala's guilty plea on it fell away on 13 July 2026 when he withdrew from his plea agreement. He denies wrongdoing on the tender and is presumed innocent, as is everyone else charged in that matter.
OpenMogotsi's case goes to 23 October so his defence can apply to compel the state to hand over witness records, and he stays in custody after a fourth bail refusal
North West businessman Brown Mogotsi, named across this commission's evidence as an alleged conduit between alleged cartel figure Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala and suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, appeared briefly in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 7 October 2026 and left it no closer to a trial. Per the Mail and Guardian, SABC News and IOL the matter was postponed to Friday 23 October 2026 so that his defence can argue an application compelling the state to comply with its request for further particulars. Per the Mail and Guardian he appeared before magistrate Annalise Tlhapi and his counsel told her 'we have received what is purported to be a response. I can advise the court to submit that we are dissatisfied with the response from the state', and that the instruction held was 'to compel, to bring an application to compel the state to actually comply with that particular request for further particulars'. Per the same report 16 October had first been arranged for the application and moved because the state prosecutor was unavailable. The material the defence wants is specific: per the Mail and Guardian and IOL, cellphone and employment records relating to a state witness listed as A5, proof of residence for witnesses A5 and A6, unredacted witness statements, and images extracted from video footage of the alleged shooting in Vosloorus. The state has previously objected to handing over certain personal details of witnesses. Per SABC News and IOL the charges are unlawful possession of a firearm, discharging a firearm in a built-up area, perjury and defeating the ends of justice, arising from an alleged staged assassination attempt on himself in Vosloorus on the East Rand, and he has now been refused bail four times and remains in custody. Keep the two tracks apart, because the outlets do. The criminal case is about a firearm and an alleged staged shooting. The commission's evidence about him is a different body of allegation: per IOL, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi told the commission that Mogotsi allegedly interfered in investigations and shared classified information, and other evidence has alleged he acted as a go-between for Matlala and Mchunu and used money allegedly supplied by Matlala to fund African National Congress events. None of that has been tested, none of it is before the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court, Mogotsi denies wrongdoing, no court has convicted him, and he and everyone named here are presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya's wife tells the Randburg court the complainant's father asked through a pastor to withdraw the case, the court hears he kept almost 300 recordings, and bail stands over to 13 October
The part-heard bail application of suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya resumed in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 7 October 2026 and the day went to an affidavit from his own household. Per SABC News the court postponed the application to Tuesday 13 October 2026, with the state expected to put up affidavits from the complainant's father, anonymised by every outlet as Mr M, and from the 18-year-old complainant in the second matter. Per TimesLIVE, IOL and Eyewitness News, Sibiya's wife Sizakele Dlamini filed an affidavit answering the state's allegation that her husband had tried to intimidate and influence Mr M, and her case is that every approach came the other way. She says an assistant pastor at the ECG Church, referred to throughout as the apostle and known to the family for about six months, told her on 23 September that Mr M wanted to come to her home to discuss the arrest and was willing to drop the case, that the idea was Mr M's own, and that Mr M had been troubled after seeing Sibiya weeping in court; per TimesLIVE she feared a setup, declined to meet him and told the apostle the case should proceed. Per IOL the magistrate, Hleziphi Mkhasibe, asked Sibiya's legal team to identify the apostle in open court, and they did. Per TimesLIVE and IOL she says Mr M then telephoned her late on 24 September, which she returned with a relative present and recorded, and sent her WhatsApp messages on 2 October including a long text, two screenshots and a forwarded voice note, which she read as threatening and after which she blocked his number. Per TimesLIVE her conclusion is that the contact 'is entirely inconsistent with any suggestion that the applicant and his family sought to approach, influence, or exert pressure upon him', and she disputes the state's description of Mr M as her husband's bodyguard, saying to the best of her knowledge he was never employed by Sibiya in any capacity. Per the Mail and Guardian the other half of the day cuts the other way: the court heard that Mr M has kept almost 300 recordings of Sibiya's meetings along with photographs, vehicle-camera footage and vehicle-tracking data, and that he told Dlamini in those WhatsApp messages 'I have photographs, messages, locations records, documents and records relating to various meetings and conversations that took place while I was present', that he had preserved it on a USB held by someone he trusts in case he dies, and that he would give investigators 'every information pertaining to all the cases, all the people who disappeared, all [of] Cat Matlala involvement and all the senior officials and politicians'. He also wrote, in a line the defence read as the point, 'I preserved information for my own protection. I'm not saying this to threaten anyone.' Per the Mail and Guardian the defence advocate Estelle Killian put it that Mr M 'is not threatening her but he is threatening the husband', and the state prosecutor said the prosecution was grateful the messages had been brought before court because they could strengthen its case. One detail in the affidavit is reported and deliberately left unattached here. Per IOL and TimesLIVE the apostle is said to have told Dlamini that Mr M was being pressured by people she identified only as 'Khumalo' and 'Mkhwanazi'; IOL states expressly that it is not clear from the affidavit who she meant, and this archive therefore connects those two surnames to nobody, and in particular to no person who shares them on this commission's record. This is an untested affidavit in a bail application, not evidence at a trial. This archive records the charges and the court dates in this matter and nothing that could identify any complainant. The criminal case does not arise from the subject matter of this commission. Sibiya denies the charges, remains in custody, no court has convicted him, and he and everyone named here are presumed innocent.
OpenThe commission goes back behind closed doors for an undercover Crime Intelligence officer, and on the day itself no ruling on letting him testify in secret had been published
The commission sat on Wednesday 7 October 2026 at the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria and the public saw none of it. Per SABC News the evidence set down for the day was that of a witness the commission calls Witness S, an officer who ran undercover Crime Intelligence operations, and whose work involved gathering information on an organised criminal syndicate alleged to have infiltrated the South African Police Service. Per Eyewitness News the evidence leaders filed their in camera application for him on Thursday 1 October, asking that the proceedings and 'transcripts, recordings and documents' be treated as confidential, and warning that making the material public may alert suspects that they are being tracked or lead them to informants; per the same report the records had been briefly declassified for the commission alone. Members of the media were given 72 hours to oppose the application. There are two things this archive can say and one it cannot. It can say the application was made and on what grounds, and that the day proceeded in camera as the commission's schedule intended. It could not say, on the day, how the chairperson ruled on the application: no ruling on it had been published by anyone, and the 72 hours the media were given to oppose it expired days before the sitting. That gap is recorded here rather than filled, and it closed two days later. The ruling reached the public record on 9 October 2026, dated 8 October, the day after this sitting. Nothing was heard in public, no evidence from the day is on the record, and nothing here is a finding about anyone.
OpenSAPS will fight Sibiya's Labour Court bid to stop the hearing this commission produced, and a charge count this archive held back is now carried by a second outlet
Two things firmed up on Tuesday 6 October 2026 in the matters running alongside this commission. Per Eyewitness News the South African Police Service confirmed it intends to oppose suspended deputy national commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya's urgent Labour Court application to halt the internal disciplinary hearing that arises from this commission's findings. The national police spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, repeated the position recorded here on 5 October: 'The urgent application before the labour court was also heard today and has been adjourned to allow SAPS to file its opposing papers', and that the disciplinary and the Labour Court proceedings 'are separate matters and have been running in parallel'. Per the Mail and Guardian the ground his side advances is that he is not in a position to proceed with the disciplinary while dealing with the criminal case, his representative advocate Estelle Kilian having asked for time to consult; per the same report the Labour Court matter stands over to Monday 12 October 2026, the date the Regulation 9 disciplinary itself was moved to at his request, and the main internal hearing remains set down for 2 to 6 and 10 to 20 November 2026. Second, a figure this archive deliberately refused to move. On 5 October IOL put his criminal charges at six against the five this archive had taken from the court on 1 October, and the count was held pending a second outlet. The Mail and Guardian of 6 October now also reports six, and breaks them down as rape, three counts relating to sexual grooming, trafficking in persons and a contravention of the Firearms Control Act. On two independent outlets the count moves to six. This archive publishes the charges and the court dates in this matter and nothing about the complainants. His part-heard bail application resumes in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 7 October 2026, and he remains in custody at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre. That criminal case does not arise from the subject matter of this commission, though per Sowetan the disciplinary charges do. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged at this commission. He denies the charges and the allegations, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSindane's second attempt to stop the commission compelling him is struck from the roll, with no papers filed and no counsel in court
The 6 October High Court date this archive has carried as an open question since 28 September has an answer, and it is a short one. Per News24 and SNL24 the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria struck Mpumalanga taxi boss Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's urgent application from the roll on Tuesday 6 October 2026. The relief he sought was an interdict restraining the commission from compelling him to appear and give evidence, pending a challenge to the subpoena itself. Per both outlets it was struck because no court papers had been filed, and he had no counsel in court when the matter was called. This was his second attempt at the same destination: per News24 the first, brought at the end of September on the day he was due before the commission and seeking also to keep his WhatsApp messages out of evidence, was struck from the roll with punitive costs. Neither outlet reports a costs order on this second application. The practical position is that the subpoena stands and so does the commission's 25 September order that the evidence of or concerning him be led in whatever format, under which chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC already led the documentary evidence in his absence on 28 September. Per Eyewitness News he has now failed in another attempt to avoid testifying. A striking off the roll is a procedural outcome and not a ruling on the merits of his challenge to the subpoena; nothing here is a finding against him on anything alleged before the commission, he denies wrongdoing, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenKhan reached the closed room and still did not testify: his in camera evidence is postponed after a family member was shot dead the night before
The commission's own statement is the record of this one. On Tuesday 6 October 2026, the day the chairperson had set down for dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan to be heard behind closed doors, the commission's spokesperson Jeremy Michaels confirmed that Khan 'appeared before it remotely and in-camera this (Tuesday) morning' but that 'due to the death of a family member resulting from a shooting incident on the R21 in Gauteng last (Monday) night, Mr Khan is not in a position to testify today'. The testimony is postponed 'to a date which has yet to be determined', and the commission said it will make further announcements. Per The Citizen, IOL and Sunday World the man killed was Preggy Padayachee, described by all three as Khan's uncle-in-law. Per Sunday World his vehicle broke down on the R21 near Griffiths Road in Ekurhuleni, on the way towards OR Tambo International Airport; he called a friend for roadside assistance, and when the friend and two others arrived unknown gunmen opened fire on the group. He tried to get away, lost control and crashed into a concrete barrier, and died at the scene. Per Sunday World one of the others was wounded and taken to hospital and one was unhurt. Police are investigating murder and attempted murder and, per IOL and Sunday World, no arrests have been made. Per The Citizen, Padayachee had previously spoken publicly on the family's behalf about Khan. Three things are worth stating plainly, because the sequence invites an inference that nothing on the record supports. No source establishes any connection between this killing and this commission, or between it and Khan's evidence. No motive has been established by the police, and the suggestions of one that have been reported rest on an unnamed source, so this archive does not carry them. And the postponement itself changes nothing about the rest of Khan's position: the chairperson's finding of 28 September that his earlier non-appearance was 'a flagrant disregard of a subpoena by this commission' stands, as does the direction to the commission's secretary to lay criminal charges over that failure to attend. This is the fourth date set for his evidence and the fourth on which it has not been given, and the first on which the reason was not his own. A referral is not a charge, a charge is not a conviction, he has still not answered any of the allegations against him from the witness box, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenIn-Camera Ruling, Gen Khan
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenDay 182
The first numbered sitting of the commission's two-week closed-door block, and the whole public record of it is a single media statement. The day had been set down on Friday 2 October for dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, the former deputy head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, to answer in camera the evidence led against him in private on 7 and 9 July, with attendance confined to the panel, the evidence leaders, their attorneys and his own legal representatives, and everyone in the room barred from publishing, broadcasting or disseminating any of it. He reached the room and he did not testify. Per the commission's own statement its spokesperson Jeremy Michaels confirmed that Khan 'appeared before it remotely and in-camera this (Tuesday) morning' but that 'due to the death of a family member resulting from a shooting incident on the R21 in Gauteng last (Monday) night, Mr Khan is not in a position to testify today', and that the evidence stands postponed 'to a date which has yet to be determined'. Per The Citizen, IOL and Sunday World the man killed was Preggy Padayachee, described by all three as Khan's uncle-in-law, shot on the R21 near Griffiths Road in Ekurhuleni on the Monday night after his car broke down; police are investigating murder and attempted murder and no arrests have been made. Nothing on the record connects that killing to this commission or to Khan's evidence, and the police have established no motive, so this page draws no line between them. This is the fourth date set for his evidence and the fourth on which it was not given, and the first on which the reason was not his own doing. The chairperson's finding of 28 September that his earlier non-appearance was a flagrant disregard of a subpoena stands, and so does the direction to the commission's secretary to lay criminal charges over that failure to attend. Away from the closed room the same Tuesday, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria struck Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's second urgent attempt to stop this commission compelling him to appear from the roll, no papers having been filed and no counsel being in court. Nothing on this page is a finding. No evidence was heard, every allegation against Khan remains unanswered from the witness box and untested, a direction to lay a charge is not a charge and a charge is not a conviction, and he and everyone named here are presumed innocent.
OpenThe disciplinary that came out of this commission does not start either: Sibiya's Regulation 9 hearing moves to 12 October and the Labour Court stands over for papers
Monday 5 October 2026 was the day the expedited internal hearing arising from this commission's findings was to begin against suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya. It convened and it stopped. Per Sowetan and IOL the South African Police Service confirmed that the hearing was postponed at his own request to Monday 12 October 2026. The national police spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, put it plainly: 'The disciplinary hearing was heard today, with the applicant's request for a postponement granted', and said the new date was to allow him 'an opportunity to consult with his legal representatives in preparation for the hearing'. The second half of the day is the part this archive flagged on 2 October. His attorney Estelle Kilian had told the Randburg Magistrate's Court that an urgent application would follow if the postponement failed, with the Labour Court as the fallback; in the event the urgent Labour Court application was heard on the same Monday and it too stands over. Per Sowetan and IOL, Mathe said 'the urgent application before the labour court was also heard today and has been adjourned to allow SAPS to file its opposing papers and allow the applicant to file his replying affidavit before the matter can be heard by the court', and that 'the disciplinary hearing and the labour court proceedings are separate matters and have been running in parallel'. She would go no further on the merits: 'The labour court matter remains sub judice, and the SAPS will therefore refrain from commenting on its merits.' His part-heard bail application resumes in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 7 October 2026, the same day the commission is set to hear Witness S behind closed doors. One count is left as it stands: IOL's report of 5 October puts his criminal charges at six, while the record this archive took from the court on 1 October is five, and the figure is not changed here until a second outlet carries it. This archive records the charges and the court dates in this matter and nothing about the complainants. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged at this commission. Sibiya denies the charges and the allegations, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenA police forensic report asks that a former police minister be prosecuted over the Matlala tender, and he answers that they must show him the receipts
The R360 million contract this commission has spent a year on has produced a document the public had not seen. Per the Sunday Times of 3 October 2026, a 370-page joint forensic report by the South African Police Service's own internal audit and risk and integrity management divisions, finalised in April 2026, recommends that former police minister Bheki Cele be criminally prosecuted for allegedly receiving unlawful gratification from companies linked to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala: cash said to run to hundreds of thousands of rands, and stays in a luxury penthouse at The Capital Menlyn Maine in Pretoria. Per the Sunday Times and Sowetan the investigators went to the bank records of Medicare24 Tshwane District and of Matlala's security company CAT Protection and Security and describe a 'specific pattern' of large cash withdrawals in the days around Matlala's meetings with Cele. The report recommends prosecution on the Medicare24 contract of four people - Cele, Matlala, Captain Brian Cartwright and Brigadier Petunia Lenono, both of whom sat on the bid committee and the latter of whom the report says was employed by Medicare24 while the contract was running - and also names Lieutenant-General Molefe Fani. Medicare24 won the three-year R360 million health risk management contract in June 2024, the month Cele's term as minister ended, and per the Sunday Times was paid some R50 million between August 2024 and April 2025. Cele rejects the whole of it. Per the Sunday Times: 'If they say I got money, they must show me bank receipts which show that I received the money', and of the penthouse, 'when has it been a crime to sleep there?' The Citizen carried the report the following day. Four things decide what this is. It is an internal report and a recommendation, not a charge: nobody has been charged on it and the prosecuting authority has not said what it will do with it. It was finalised in April 2026 and only reached the public in October. It is not this commission's document, even though the tender, the company and the man at the centre of it are this commission's business. And it is untested: Cele denies it, Matlala denies wrongdoing on the tender, none of the people named has answered it in any forum, and every one of them is presumed innocent.
OpenThe first witness of the closed fortnight: evidence leaders ask that an undercover Crime Intelligence officer be heard with the room shut
The fortnight the public cannot see already has an application in it. Per The Citizen and Eyewitness News, the commission's evidence leaders filed on Thursday 1 October 2026 to have the evidence of a former Crime Intelligence officer, referred to only as 'Witness S', heard in camera when he testifies on Wednesday 7 October 2026. The stated ground is not embarrassment but exposure. Per The Citizen the founding affidavit, by attorney Geraldine Burger of Diale Mogashoa Inc, says of the people the officer handled: 'Should the identity of the informants be disclosed, their physical safety and possibly their lives will be put at risk.' Per Eyewitness News the officer ran covert operations to gather intelligence on an alleged organised crime syndicate and its infiltration of the South African Police Service, and the warning is that airing it publicly may alert suspects that they are being tracked or lead them to informants. Per The Citizen most of the evidence rests on records of undercover operations that have been declassified for the commission's use and are not authorised for release beyond it. The media have 72 hours to oppose, and chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga will rule after that. Three things are worth holding onto. This is a request and not yet a decision. It is the second such application live at once, alongside the evidence leaders' pending application over Major-General Feroz Khan's WhatsApp evidence, which carries a 6 October date. And by the commission's own one-year count on 17 September 2026 it would be the twentieth in-camera application in this inquiry, nineteen having already been granted. Nothing in an in camera ruling is a finding, and anyone who may be named in evidence the public cannot hear is as presumed innocent as anyone named in evidence it can.
OpenSibiya stays in custody to 7 October after the court calls for translations, and he will fight the 5 October disciplinary that came out of this commission
The bail application of suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya did not finish on Friday 2 October 2026 either, and it now runs into the week the commission goes behind closed doors. Per the Mail and Guardian the Randburg Magistrate's Court postponed the part-heard application to Wednesday 7 October 2026 after magistrate Hleziphi Mkhasibe asked for proper translations of two audio recordings played in court, and Sibiya remains in custody at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre over the weekend. Per the Mail and Guardian and Eyewitness News the day was taken up with the continued cross-examination of the investigating officer, Detective Sergeant Nokukhanya Ndlovu, who gave evidence opposing release on the ground that Sibiya could interfere with witnesses. One disputed fact in the record is now settled and one is not. The arrest was on 21 September 2026, which resolves the 20-versus-21 September discrepancy this archive has carried; the place was The Grand in Sandton, and his defence disputes how the State has described it, arguing he was arrested in the restaurant section of a premises that also has a separate hotel area. Separately, and more directly this commission's business, Sibiya will try to stop the disciplinary hearing that arises from its findings. Per IOL his attorney Estelle Kilian told the court that an urgent application to postpone the expedited SAPS hearing set down for Monday 5 October 2026 will be made when he appears, and that 'if it is unsuccessful, the defence will approach the Labour Court'; her stated reason is the pile-up of notices, including 'a further notice served, a third notice' on 30 September. Per IOL the SAPS national spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, confirmed both the date and its origin: 'We can confirm that the member in question has been served with a notice to attend a disciplinary hearing on October 5 on allegations arising from the Madlanga Commission inquiry', and that it runs as 'an expeditious disciplinary hearing, which is Regulation 9, because allegations of corruption will fall under that category'. This archive records the charges and the court dates in this matter and nothing about the complainants. A charge is an allegation and a bail hearing decides only whether a man is held. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged at this commission. Sibiya denies the charges and the allegations, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe Public Protector says the Mchunu ethics investigation is close to done, and that it is not running a second Madlanga Commission
There is a second state investigation into the minister this commission has not yet heard from, and its office spent the week explaining why it is not a duplicate. Per TimesLIVE and Sowetan the Public Protector's office said its investigation into suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu is at a 'very advanced stage', and per Eyewitness News and IOL it rejected the suggestion that it is running a parallel Madlanga Commission. The two processes ask different questions. The complaint, lodged by the African Transformation Movement after Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi's media briefing of 6 July 2025 - the briefing that produced this commission - concerns alleged executive misconduct and a breach of the Executive Ethics Code by a member of the executive, not the criminality in the criminal justice system that this inquiry was established to examine. Per IOL the office said new information was still arriving and had to be run down before a report could issue, which is why an investigation described as advanced has still not produced one. Mchunu was placed on special leave by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 13 July 2025 and has denied wrongdoing throughout. He testified before this commission on Days 44 and 45, and he is expected back in Phase Two, after public hearings resume on 9 November 2026. An investigation is not a finding, the Public Protector has published nothing, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe closed fortnight has its first named witness: Khan's evidence is granted in camera and he answers the July WhatsApps on 6 October
The application this archive recorded on 25 September 2026 has been decided. Per SABC News and The Citizen, chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga ruled on Friday 2 October 2026 that the evidence of Major-General Feroz Khan, the dismissed former deputy head of Crime Intelligence, will be heard in camera, and set him down for Tuesday 6 October 2026, the second day of the fortnight the public cannot see. Only the commission's bench, the evidence leaders, their attorneys and Khan's own legal representatives may be present, and per SABC News those who are there are 'prohibited from publishing, broadcasting, disseminating or otherwise placing in the public domain any recording'. Per The Citizen the chairperson directed him to file his responding statement by '12 midday on Saturday, 3 October 2026', answering the evidence that was led in his absence in camera on 7 and 9 July 2026. Per Eyewitness News he is expected to testify remotely and with regular breaks, to accommodate the medical condition that followed his being shot and hospitalised in July. The ruling does not soften what came before it: per SABC News the chairperson held that his earlier absence was a 'flagrant disregard' of the commission's subpoena and of a previous ruling, and the direction that the commission secretary pursue criminal charges against him for defying it stands. Per Sowetan the evidence he has to answer includes a commission investigator's allegation about a National Treasury information technology contract and a company called Smada, and an alleged part in moves against the former Inspector-General of Intelligence; he has answered none of it on the record. One expectation is corrected here: Eyewitness News's report of 3 October put his response on the Wednesday, while SABC News, The Citizen and MDNtv all carry Tuesday 6 October, which is the date this archive records. Nothing heard behind a closed door is a finding. Khan denies wrongdoing, no court has convicted him of anything, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenIn- camera Application, Feroz Khan
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenA fifth charge for Sibiya, and the commission's own findings get their own expedited disciplinary notice
Two things were added to the record against suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya on Thursday 1 October 2026, as his part-heard bail application resumed in the Randburg Magistrate's Court. Per Eyewitness News the State added a further charge, negligent handling of a firearm; prosecutor Velile Makhasana told the court 'a separate case number has been registered in respect of the firearm issue' and that 'the firearm was stored in his vehicle' when he was arrested. Per The Citizen the court also heard that he is now facing three separate internal SAPS disciplinary notices rather than one: a first set down for 2 to 6 and 10 to 20 November 2026, a second running as an expedited process under SAPS Regulation 9 and set down for Monday 5 October 2026, which is the one that arises from this commission's findings, and a third served on him on 30 September 2026 while he was in custody. His counsel told the court that 'the charges that form the subject matter of the new notice are not the charges that form the subject matter of the previous notice'. Per Eyewitness News his attorney Rishaad Moosa was cross-examined by the State, which put to him that he had helped Sibiya write to the National Prosecuting Authority about the investigation before the arrest; his other attorney answered that 'the witness has clearly said he wrote to the NPA to avoid a spectacle. Not to run away from arrest and the law.' This archive records the charges and the court dates and nothing about the complainants. A charge is an allegation. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged at this commission. Sibiya denies the charges and the allegations, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya's SAPS disciplinary hearing is set down for Monday 5 October, to sit in the correctional centre if he is still in custody
The date that was 'the earliest possible' on Tuesday is now a date. Per Jacaranda FM and Scrolla.Africa, the South African Police Service confirmed on Wednesday 30 September 2026, through national spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, that the expedited internal disciplinary hearing of suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya will start on Monday 5 October 2026. Per Jacaranda FM it will be chaired by the Limpopo provincial commissioner, Jan Scheepers, and the venue turns on the bail outcome: 'If he is still in custody, we will then organise with Correctional Services to allow that particular hearing to sit down in Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Centre on the 5th of October.' Per Scrolla.Africa the process runs under the SAPS regulation reserved for serious corruption allegations, and the allegations are those made about him at this commission. His bail application in the Randburg Magistrate's Court, part-heard since Tuesday, resumes on Thursday 1 October. A disciplinary hearing is an employer's process. It decides nothing about any criminal charge, it is not a finding on anything alleged at this commission, Sibiya denies the allegations and the charges, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe commission stops sitting in public until 9 November: no sitting on 2 October, then two weeks in camera
The Madlanga Commission issued a media statement on Wednesday 30 September 2026 setting out the rest of its year, and it means the public record of this inquiry now goes quiet for nearly six weeks. Per Voice of the Cape, the commission does not sit at all on Friday 2 October. From the week of 5 October it sits in camera for two weeks, in the words of its spokesperson Jeremy Michaels to hear 'evidence which is not suitable for airing publicly due to ongoing investigations and/or the confidential nature of the material'. Public hearings resume on Monday 9 November, after the local government elections of 4 November. The same statement sets out what remains: the balance of Phase Two, including the evidence of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, then Phase Three opening with Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi returning to the stand, then drafting through December and January, with the commission's report due to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 25 January 2027. Two things follow. The 2 October date that has been reported for weeks as the close of public evidence is not a close but a recess. And the evidence leaders' application to hear Major-General Feroz Khan's evidence in camera, and the 6 October date attached to it, now sit inside a fortnight that will not be broadcast. Wednesday 30 September was therefore the last public evidence heard by this commission until November.
OpenThe commission closes its hotline to new submissions and sets a two-day seminar to start drafting the report
The commission's scheduling statement of 30 September 2026, now published on its own record, carries two things that the coverage of the recess did not lead with. The first is that the public can no longer bring it anything new: in the words of the statement, the commission 'will not be accepting any new submissions via its hotline and various other platforms, although the Commission will continue to accept information which can assist in matters which are already receiving the attention of the evidence leaders and investigators'. For an inquiry that has run on tip-offs since September 2025, that is the door closing on the intake. The second is that the drafting has started: the statement says the commission will hold a two-day seminar during October 'in preparation for the drafting of its final report', alongside the two weeks of in camera hearings from 5 October. The same statement, issued by spokesperson Jeremy Michaels, confirms there is no sitting on 2 October, that public hearings resume on 9 November 2026, and that the report is due to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 25 January 2027. This is the commission's own scheduling announcement and it makes no finding about anybody.
OpenMatlala's evidence is pushed to 14 December, the 1 October sitting falls away, and the chairperson calls the late subpoena unacceptable
The commission's last scheduled public sitting before the recess did not happen. Per SABC News, The Citizen and IOL, the evidence of Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, who was to appear on Thursday 1 October 2026, was postponed to Monday 14 December 2026, and with it Thursday's sitting was cancelled. The reason given is the date on the subpoena. Matlala was served on 25 September 2026, five days before he was due in the box, and could not secure legal representation in time. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga put the blame on the commission's own side rather than on the witness, telling chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC: 'I know, Chaskalson, that you are standing in and that it's not your matter, but it is unacceptable that Mr Matlala was only subpoenaed on the 25th.' Per IOL and SABC News, Chaskalson said Matlala could be brought back sooner if a window opens in his criminal trial and he can be given enough notice. Matlala has already given evidence to this commission under subpoena on four days. He is an accused in a pending criminal matter, the allegations made about him at this commission are untested, he denies them, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenMadlanga Schedule
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
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Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni. The last public sitting of the commission's evidence before it goes behind closed doors, and it turned from a quarry to a bus company. Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni returned for a second day of cross-examination and chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC put a sequence to him rather than a single allegation: that he told the President of the country his people would be behind any interference with Putco, that Putco was then interfered with on a scale the company counted, that its depots were burned, and that a body he chairs offered to buy it. Per Sowetan and TimesLIVE the commission heard that Putco recorded more than 350 incidents between October 2024 and January 2025 in which taxi operators blocked its buses from working around KwaNdebele. Per The Citizen and IOL the commission played footage of a January 2024 African National Congress campaign event at which Sibanyoni told President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister Gwede Mantashe, in support of a demand that local operators get 30 percent of Putco's Mpumalanga routes, 'when you find someone wanting to interfere with the Putco business, you must know it is us. Don't put red tapes.' Per Sowetan and Inside Politics the commission then took him through the night of 27 January 2025, when armed men took Putco's depots and burned roughly 51 buses, 16 of them at the Moloto depot in under ten minutes on closed circuit footage; through a message he sent about acquiring buses some 36 hours later; and through the unsolicited offer that Taxi Choice, the business arm of the South African National Taxi Council which he chairs, made to buy Putco on 25 February 2025. Per Eyewitness News and Inside Politics he rejected the whole construction: 'I differ. I differ 100% with your findings.' He said the taxis in the commission's video carried Mpumalanga plates and were not his association's, that his approach to the President concerned 'legitimate public and community matters', and that Taxi Choice's interest in Putco long predated any of it. When he suggested the questioning about Putco had become personal, per SABC News the chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused the suggestion and said there was nothing wrong with the evidence leader or the commission's investigators consulting Putco. Nothing on this page is a finding. No one has been charged over the depot fires on this record, Sibanyoni denies any involvement in them, his evidence and every allegation put to him are untested, and he and everyone named are presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya's bail application is part-heard and postponed to 1 October; he stays at Kgosi Mampuru II
Suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya made his formal bail application in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 29 September 2026, and the matter did not finish. Per SABC News and Sunday World the court postponed it to Thursday 1 October 2026 so the state could read documents handed over that morning and prepare to cross-examine the defence's first witness. Per SABC News the National Prosecuting Authority's Kaizer Kganyago put the reason plainly: 'The reason why we asked for a postponement is because we were given the documents this morning and we have to read those documents.' Sibiya remains in custody at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre. He is asking for bail of R20,000 and, per SABC News and the Mail and Guardian, denies the charges and says he will plead not guilty; his attorney Estelle Kilian told the court the case is trumped up and aimed at removing him from the police service. This archive continues to publish the charges and the court dates in this matter and deliberately nothing more. One of the two complainants was a minor at the time of the alleged conduct, and the particulars are not ours to circulate. The charges do not arise from what this commission is investigating. Nothing has been tried, he has not pleaded, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSAPS serves Shadrack Sibiya with a disciplinary notice in the court holding cells, over the allegations made at this commission
While suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya was at the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 29 September 2026 for his bail application, the South African Police Service served him with notice of an internal disciplinary hearing. Per Briefly the SAPS national spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, confirmed at a media briefing outside the court that a senior presiding officer handed him the notice in the holding cells, and that the five day notice period required by SAPS regulations makes Monday 5 October 2026 the earliest date the hearing can start. Per Briefly the venue is undecided and turns on the bail outcome: if he is still in custody it would sit at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria, and if he is released it would be communicated separately. The two outlets do not describe the charge sheet the same way. Per Sowetan the disciplinary process concerns the allegations made about him at this commission, including an improper relationship with alleged underworld figures and the gifts of twenty impalas and money attributed to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala; Briefly ties the notice to the criminal charges he is facing. This archive records both characterisations rather than choosing between them. Per Sowetan, Sibiya told the court that being held in custody would deprive him of his right to an audi alteram partem hearing and prevent him preparing. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process, not a court's. It decides nothing about any criminal charge, it is not a finding on anything alleged at this commission, Sibiya denies the allegations, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe withdrawal of the Masemola charges goes to the High Court: an MP asks that the prosecutions head's decision be reviewed and set aside
The charges this archive recorded as withdrawn on 22 September 2026 are being challenged. Per IOL and Sunday World, Fadiel Adams, the member of Parliament and National Coloured Congress president whose section 27 complaint began the matter, filed a review application in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on 29 September 2026 asking the court to review and set aside the decision of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Andy Mothibi, to withdraw the criminal charges against national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola. The National Prosecuting Authority withdrew them before the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on 22 September 2026, saying there were no prospects of a successful conviction, after an Investigating Directorate Against Corruption docket, a case assessment panel report and an independent senior counsel's opinion. Adams brings the application under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, arguing that the decision was 'not rationally connected to the information before the administrator'. Per IOL and Sunday World his papers rely on affidavits from Major-General Fred Kekana, Major-General Senobea Julie Hankins, Ramasela Flora Matjeke and Lieutenant-General Puleng Patricia Dimpane, and turn on the disputed SAPS medical services tender in which Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala and the murdered whistleblower Babita Deokaran both feature. Mothibi and Masemola are cited as respondents and neither has answered on this record. Two limits on what this means. A review application is a challenge to how a decision was taken, not a finding that the underlying allegations are true; and the charges against Masemola are withdrawn, he has not been convicted of anything and he is presumed innocent. Adams's own account of how the complaint came to be opened is itself contested evidence before this commission rather than an established fact.
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Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni. A day after the commission read Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's WhatsApp messages into a public record he was not in the room to answer, the man on the other end of most of them came back to the witness box to answer them for himself. Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni, president of the South African Local and Long Distance Taxi and Bus Organisation, resumed a cross-examination that had had no date since 21 September, and chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC put the alleged extortion of Dr Tengane Thomas Ntuli to him directly. His answer was that there was a business, not a racket: per The Citizen he told the commission he put R900,000 into a joint arrangement with Ntuli, whose company held mining rights to a quarry but could not meet the 30 percent local content requirement on the R572 Moloto road upgrade, and that the profit split the evidence leaders read as protection money was his 40 percent share, 'he gets 60% because you are directly involved running the quarry, give me 40%'. Per IOL and the African News Agency he went further and separated himself from his co-accused on the threatening message, telling Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC that Sindane had been acting on his own and saying 'Ntuli and I had a good relationship, I never sent him any threatening message.' He was also asked why he had helped pay the legal bills of Calvin Gwabo Mahlangu, convicted over a taxi killing; per IOL and Eyewitness News his answer was family rather than crime, 'his family approached me ... his mother approached me to help'. He said he did not know how Sindane came to hold a confidential police docket on the alleged Kwaggafontein 20 grouping, whose papers name a man he has identified as his nephew, and Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC told him she found that unbelievable. He objected to being cross-examined at all on facts that are also the charges he faces in Delmas. Nothing on this page is a finding. Sibanyoni's evidence is untested, so is everything alleged against him, he denies the criminal charges, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent. He is part-heard and returns on 30 September 2026.
OpenSindane's court bid to keep his WhatsApps out is struck off with punitive costs, and the messages are read into the record without him
The urgent application Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane filed on the night of 22 September, hours before he was due in the witness box, was called on Monday 28 September 2026 and failed. Per News24 and SNL24 the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria struck it from the roll, and per News24 and The Citizen it did so with punitive costs. Sowetan places the court in Johannesburg; this archive records the disagreement rather than choosing. The application had asked that the subpoena compelling his testimony be set aside and that the commission be barred from using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone. Per News24 his case was that the Hawks had seized the device for a pending extortion and money laundering matter, that the warrant could not be repurposed without permission, and that the phone held 'deeply private information which had nothing to do with any investigation by the commission or with the charges I face'. With the last obstacle gone and the commission's own 25 September ruling already ordering that his evidence be led 'in whatever format', chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC led the documentary evidence in his absence on the same day. Per Sowetan he characterised the exchanges as 'an extortion racket enforced with threats of violence', and per TimesLIVE and Sowetan the evidence put a monthly demand of R100,000 from July 2021 on a businessman, Dr Tengane Thomas Ntuli, who held a South African National Roads Agency contract to upgrade the Moloto road, together with a message attributed to Sindane after a missed payment: 'I demand a response, within 48 hours, detailing why the operation should not be stopped.' A costs order and a body of untested documentary evidence are not findings of guilt. Sindane has given no evidence to this commission, has not answered any of this, denies the criminal charges he faces with three co-accused, and is presumed innocent.
OpenCriminal charges ordered against Feroz Khan after a second no-show: 'a flagrant disregard of a subpoena'
Dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, the former deputy head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, was under subpoena to give evidence on Monday 28 September 2026 and did not appear. The date was not a first attempt: it had already been set by the chairperson on 1 September, after Khan failed to attend that day, on conditions he was required to meet. Per Eyewitness News and SABC News his legal team filed late on Sunday for roughly another month, arguing from psychological reports that he should testify virtually from a familiar setting, in the words of his representative Mr Vally, 'so that there's no triggers'. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused it. Per the Daily Maverick, Business Day, SABC News and The Citizen he held that 'his non-appearance today is a flagrant disregard of a subpoena by this commission', and per The Citizen put the principle to Khan's representative directly: 'If we accept this, Mr Vally, then what is the point of a subpoena? It becomes a meaningless piece of paper.' Per TimesLIVE evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC had asked that the non-attendance be referred to the National Prosecuting Authority for determination. The chairperson then directed the commission's secretary, Dr Nolitha Vukuza, to take the steps needed to lay criminal charges against Khan for failing to attend. Per Business Day the offence sits in the Commissions Act: a person summoned who fails to attend without sufficient cause is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of up to R1,093 or imprisonment of up to six months, or both. Read what this is. It is a finding about attendance and a referral to a prosecutor. It is not a charge, it is not a conviction, and it decides nothing about the untested allegations Khan has still never answered from the witness box. Per Eyewitness News and the Daily Maverick part of his evidence may yet be heard on 6 October 2026 if the evidence leaders' pending application to hear the WhatsApp portion in camera succeeds. He is presumed innocent.
OpenDay 179
The heaviest day left on the calendar arrived and neither of the two men it was set down for was in the room. Dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, the former deputy head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, was under a subpoena that the 1 September ruling had already moved once to this date, and he did not appear; his legal representative, Mr Vally, applied on Sunday night for another month, arguing from psychological reports that his client should testify virtually from a familiar environment so that there are no triggers. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused it and went further. Per the Daily Maverick, Business Day, SABC News and The Citizen he held that 'his non-appearance today is a flagrant disregard of a subpoena by this commission' and directed the commission's secretary, Dr Nolitha Vukuza, to lay criminal charges against Khan for failing to attend, after evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC submitted that the non-attendance was in defiance of the subpoena and should go to the National Prosecuting Authority. Per Business Day the Commissions Act makes it an offence for a person summoned to fail to attend without sufficient cause, carrying a fine of up to R1,093 or up to six months' imprisonment, or both. Part of Khan's evidence may still be heard on 6 October if the evidence leaders' pending in camera application succeeds. The afternoon went to the other absent man. Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane lost his urgent bid in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to stop the commission using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone: per News24 it was struck from the roll with punitive costs. Chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC then did what the 25 September ruling permitted and led the messages into the record without him, putting up exchanges the evidence leaders read as what Chaskalson called an extortion racket enforced with threats of violence: a monthly R100,000 demanded from a businessman holding a Sanral contract on the Moloto road, legal fees funded for men convicted in taxi killings, and messages about Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala forwarded around after his arrest. Nothing on this page is a finding. Neither man has given evidence, both deny the criminal charges they face, no court has convicted either of them, and both are presumed innocent.
OpenThe evidence leaders ask for Feroz Khan's WhatsApp evidence to be heard behind closed doors
Three days before dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan is due to answer for himself, the commission's own evidence leaders have applied to close part of the room. Per IOL, Eyewitness News and the African News Agency they have asked the chairperson to rule that certain WhatsApp communications involving Khan, and the documents that go with them, be led in camera: the public and the media excluded, but Khan's legal representatives present and able to take instructions from their client. Per IOL the application also asks that the transcripts, recordings and documents of that portion stay confidential. The stated concern is not embarrassment but exposure. Per Eyewitness News the application warns that the information 'may risk ongoing sensitive investigations', and per the reporting it covers material that could identify informants and live inquiries into organised crime. The media have been given 72 hours to oppose. Note what this is and is not. It is a request, not yet a decision: the chairperson has not ruled. It is also a reversal of the direction of the earlier fight - in July it was Khan's own legal team that wanted parts of his evidence heard in camera and the commission that refused, and it is now the evidence leaders asking. Khan's evidence is set down for Monday 28 September 2026 at 09:30 under the 1 September ruling. He has not yet testified, the allegations against him are untested, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe ruling lands in writing: Sindane's postponement is refused, and his evidence is led on Monday 'in whatever format'
The decision the chairperson reserved on Day 178 was circulated on Friday 25 September 2026, and it went against the witness. Per SABC News the commission dismissed Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's application to postpone his testimony, and per IOL and the African News Agency the operative wording gives the commission room to proceed with or without him: 'The evidence of or concerning Oupa Jossiah Sindane must be led on Monday in whatever format.' That is close to what chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC had asked for on Wednesday - the day used rather than lost, the documentary evidence flighted, the question of what is finally admitted left open. Per Briefly the panel, the chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga and Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC, pressed on the point that the period of sacred spiritual seclusion advanced from the bar did not appear in the founding affidavit at all. No outlet has published the commission's full reasons, and this archive has not seen the statement itself; what is reported is the outcome and the order. Three things this ruling does not do. It does not decide anything alleged against Sindane, who has still given no evidence to this commission. It does not dispose of his urgent High Court application in Pretoria to set aside the subpoena and stop the commission using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone, which is set down for 6 October 2026 and which a judge, not the commission, will decide. And it does not convict him of anything: he denies the criminal charges he faces and he is presumed innocent.
OpenMadlanga Commission-Sindane Ruling
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenSindane Reasons For Ruling
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenThe chamber is dark until Monday, and the Sindane ruling will arrive in writing
The commission's week ends without another sitting. After Wednesday's argument on whether Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's evidence should be postponed, the chairperson, Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, reserved his decision, and per Eyewitness News he told the chamber how it would be delivered: 'Thank you. But as I understand it, we are not going to sit on Friday. So the ruling will be circulated.' Per SABC News the ruling is due on Friday 25 September 2026. A ruling that is circulated rather than read out is still a ruling, but it means there is no sitting at which to hear it, and the next public hearing is on Monday 28 September. That Monday carries three things at once: it is the date the commission set in its 1 September ruling for the evidence of dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, at 09:30; it is the date Sindane's own medical certificate anticipates for his return, the date chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC used when he framed his fallback; and it is now the first day on which the effect of Friday's ruling can be seen in the chamber. Nothing here is a finding. A ruling on a postponement decides when a man is heard, not whether anything alleged against him is true, and Sindane, who has answered none of the allegations put to the commission, is presumed innocent.
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