Witness
Assistant Director of Investigations, IPID · Gauteng
Testified · IPID investigator
The IPID assistant director who ran the Independent Police Investigative Directorate's investigation into the police accused of trying to steal from the Aeroton cocaine bust. Under cross-examination she conceded IPID had never seen the forensic cellphone evidence, that it was refused the case docket, and that the arrests at the scene may have been premature.
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.
Key disclosures
On 13 October 2021 three complainants laid an IPID complaint that officers had defeated the ends of justice over the Aeroton bust.
Maphosho testified that a Hawks chief and two officers complained to IPID against a group of senior officers; she registered the matter under the IPID Act and led the investigation from IPID's national specialised investigative team.
She testified that the DPCI refused to hand over the case docket, and that escalations to senior management failed.
IPID, she said, investigated without the docket; her demand letters and escalations - including to the national DPCI head - did not produce it, and she conceded no criminal complaint was laid over the refusal despite the IPID Act allowing it.
She conceded she had not seen the encrypted-chat and phone-tracking evidence Sebola later presented.
Had IPID known of the Threema and WhatsApp chats, Tumelo Nku's Durban trips and the May 2021 communications, she conceded, 'we were going to look at these things differently' and the investigation would not have unfolded as it did.
She interviewed Tumelo Nku, who claimed to be a police informer but offered nothing she could verify.
Maphosho testified Nku spoke vaguely of working for a now-deceased general and of 'hacking', and conceded he was likely not a registered informer.
She acknowledged IPID's complainants were themselves implicated, and that the referral memo gave a one-sided account.
Telling the commission 'we don't investigate our complainants', she accepted that many IPID complainants are themselves suspects, and that the referral had been written one-sidedly.
Under questioning she accepted that the driver's arrest was premature - and ultimately that no one should have been arrested that day.
That concession cuts against IPID's framing that releasing the driver and a manager amounted to defeating the ends of justice.
On her second day the commissioners questioned the thoroughness of IPID's investigation point by point.
Commissioners pressed Maphosho on conclusions they said the statements did not support - that the K9 unit was blocked from searching multiple containers (no statement said there was more than one), and that exhibit bags had been 'changed' (Warrant Officer Morris's statement said damaged bags were placed inside new bags, witnessed by the FSL case-management team). She accepted several points and defended others, maintaining there had been interference at the scene.
IPID recommended disciplinary steps and a prosecution referral; SAPS did not implement them and the NPA twice declined to prosecute.
Maphosho testified IPID referred the docket to the NPA recommending the prosecution of five officials - Maj-Gen Khan, Maj-Gen Kadwa, Brigadier Skhovela, Colonel Steyn and Lt-Col Sebola - for defeating the ends of justice. The NPA issued a certificate declining to prosecute (June 2024) and, on review, again found no reasonable prospects of success. Five years on, the R300m Aeroton bust remains unsolved with no convictions; everyone named is presumed innocent.
Timeline
Three complainants lay a 'defeating the ends of justice' complaint with IPID over the handling of the Aeroton bust; Maphosho takes the investigation.
She interviews Tumelo Nku, who claims to be an informer but provides nothing verifiable.
Following Lt-Col Sebola, she gives evidence on IPID's investigation and concedes significant gaps under cross-examination; her testimony continues the next sitting day.
On the stand
Connections
Senior Hawks investigator
IPID's complaint named Sebola among the accused officers; he told the commission its report ignored the forensic evidence he had gathered.
View profile →Related caseThe case file that ties these witnesses together.
Open case file →“We don't investigate our complainants.”Assistant Director Zelda Maphosho, IPID, on pursuing the complaint despite the complainants themselves being implicated.
Sources