Former Divisional Commissioner: Inspectorate, South African Police Service; former head of Crime Intelligence · Pretoria
Named in evidence · allegation answered by the record
The general whose office safe became a symbol of the alleged cover-up, until the documents explained it. Peter Anthony Jacobs began his police career out of the Non-Statutory Forces in 1985, went on to head SAPS Crime Intelligence, and later served as Divisional Commissioner for the Inspectorate, the division that investigates service complaints against the police. For most of the past year the claim has circulated - originating with National Coloured Congress MP Fadiel Adams - that the six criminal dockets Adams opened against senior Crime Intelligence officers in late 2024 were intercepted and locked away in Jacobs's safe in Pretoria. On 20 August 2026 (Day 163) Commissioner Sandile Khumalo put the paper trail to Adams and established a duller sequence: Adams complained to the police minister on 1 November 2024 that his dockets had been intercepted; the ministry escalated the complaint the same morning; Jacobs's division was given a 48-hour deadline to report; and Colonel Phillips of that division called for the dockets precisely so that he could assess them. Phillips's report of 20 November 2024 found the affidavits in the dockets 'superficial' and 'believed to be hearsay', and recorded four attempts to interview Adams, who admits he brushed the colonel off. Adams accepted the correction on the record: 'I understand and I accept that I'm the one that muddied the water.' Jacobs has not been found to have done anything improper in relation to the dockets, and the commission has made no finding against him. He is presumed innocent.
Peter JacobsSAPS InspectorateCrime IntelligenceFadiel Adamsservice complaintMadlanga Commission
This profile summarises testimony and evidence given on the public record before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. It restates allegations as presented at the hearings and is not a finding of guilt, liability, or wrongdoing by any person.
Awaiting appearanceNo portrait on the public record yet
Their role
What the record says
The allegation: dockets 'intercepted' and locked in his safe
Fadiel Adams's account, repeated to the police minister, to Parliament's ad hoc committee and in his evidence to this commission, was that the criminal dockets he opened at Cape Town Central, Orlando and Langlaagte in late October 2024 went missing and were found in a safe in Lieutenant-General Peter Jacobs's office in Pretoria, which he treated as evidence of a cover-up by senior officers. Jacobs has given no evidence to this commission in answer to that characterisation.
The answer on the record: his division was investigating Adams's own complaint
On Day 163 Commissioner Sandile Khumalo took Adams through the documents. Adams emailed the police minister at 08:21 on 1 November 2024; by 09:04 the chief of staff had instructed a report within 48 hours; the complaint was routed to the divisional commissioner for the inspectorate, registered under National Instruction 6 of 2017 and given to Colonel Phillips, the section commander for complaints collation in Jacobs's division. To assess whether the dockets had been interfered with, and whether they disclosed the elements of any offence, Phillips called for all six. That is why they were in Pretoria. Adams accepted the explanation and conceded that he had been unaware the investigation was being run at national level.
The inspectorate's finding on the dockets themselves
Colonel Phillips's report, dated 20 November 2024 and put to Adams on Day 163, recorded that the affidavits contained in the dockets 'did not have the elements of the alleged crimes as the affidavit was superficial and contained basic information which is believed to be hearsay', and that a decision was therefore taken to interview Adams to verify the evidence he said he held. Adams's own complaint file records four documented attempts to reach him between 2 and 9 November 2024, including an appointment set at Kuilsriver SAPS that he cancelled. Adams admitted he gave Phillips the runaround on the advice of the late Major-General Andre Lincoln. The following day, 21 November 2024, Adams signed his section 27 referral to IDAC.
Career context
Jacobs headed SAPS Crime Intelligence before being removed from the post in 2020 in a dispute that reached the Labour Court, and subsequently served as Divisional Commissioner: Inspectorate. He has since retired from the service. None of that history is the subject of any allegation before this commission; it is set out here because the Day 163 evidence turns on the function of the division he led.