The Violence Monitor

‘History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children’ – Nelson Mandela

The way in which a country treats it children speaks volumes about the quality of its governance. As we celebrate Mandela’s legacy, a decade after his passing, we recall the climate of hope he generated and his special love of children. Reflecting on his legacy now, hope has turned to near despair, especially – in terms of long-term consequences – about the way South Africa treats its children. Three decades post-liberation we still have pit latrines, education that for many is worse than other African countries who spend less on it than we do, and widespread malnutrition causing physical and mental stunting No attempt has been made to undo the serious damage done to black African family life by decades of colonialism and apartheid, and those system’s dehumanizing hostel life. Rape, including of young children, is out of control, and condemns many to pregnancy and a life on anti-retrovirals. That children are not the priority they should be is shown by the generally poor quality of social services and cut-backs in funding to organisations dedicated to assisting abused and traumatized children – while no expense is spared to feed the gluttonous appetites of those in our top heavy government. The buck stops with our current President who, through his refusal to replace the present Minister of Police, is complicit in SAPS atrocities (torture and killings) worthy of apartheid, lack of justice for victims of gender-based violence, and even the abuse of children, including those of Patricia Mashale.

Since she was targeted by SAPS management for reporting corruption in Free State management in 2021, Mashale herself has suffered what the TRC, referring to victims of apartheid , termed gross human rights violations, including attempted murder, the threat of death, and mental and psychological torture. Worst of all for her is having to be away from her children and meet their needs adequately, due to her unlawful dismissal by the SAPS, and her need to remain in hiding – a combination of house arrest and solitary confinement – with their father now being the only breadwinner. Worst affected, given his age, is what her now twelve-year old son has had to endure.

Over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd December, a car with members of Crime Intelligence, who had kept the family home under surveillance all weekend, tried to force their way into the yard of the home, hurling a torrent of obscene abuse at those inside, including the twelve year old boy and his pregnant adult sister. Mashale was devastated that, in her absence, the SAPS should violate her children in their own home in this way. From March 2022 the police made concerted efforts to find out where she was (after her brother had refused to tell them he narrowly missed being hit when shot at on his way home), and the family home where the children stay with their father has been under constant surveillance by different vehicles, usually with temporary cardboard licenses. In one instance the vehicle was identified as belonging to local Hawks detectives, and a report was made to the Directorate’s head. On Saturday 5 November 2022, after Mashale had gone to their home to spend time with her unwell minor child, the vehicle doing the surveillance – a black double-cab Ford Ranger – pursued the car, driven by her son-in-law, returning her to her hiding place, through Bloemfontein until the driver finally lost them in a maze of township houses and shacks. An identical vehicle was seen last week at the Mangaung police station, registered to CIS in KZN (an identical vehicle has also been keeping another vulnerable local person under surveillance).

The adult Mashale children have described how their lives have been turned upside down by worrying about their mother’s safety and no longer being able to live a normal life with friends themselves. One daughter talks of having to hold back tears, and to watch over her shoulder all the time to be sure she is not being followed. Another says her life has come to a ‘standstill’, and tells of their having to stay away from their friends as anything could happen to them anytime and endanger them. One told of how she worries every day about her mother ‘ I fear for her life every second of the day’ – a mother who had always been there for her children, and since March 2022 has not even dared to spend Christmas or birthdays with them. It is thought that the CIS vehicle watching the house last week thought she might be there to attend a baby shower being held for her pregnant daughter – but it was held at another venue. A criminal case has been opened by one of the adult children, but whether any prosecution will follow remains to be seen (none has resulted from cases opened by Patricia, including the seizure of her personal cellphone without a court order, accompanied by abuse and harassment).

All these illegal surveillance activities have continued, without any known interventions from anyone they have been reported to, including Parliament. It is not only the Constitution – which guarantees privacy – that the police are breaching: They must also be criminally charged for breaking various provisions

of the Children’s Act. Aged ten, the now twelve year old had to be removed from the weekly boarding school he attended in Trompsberg, where he was happy and did well, after the family car driven by the older son was followed from there to Bloemfontein by unmarked cars carrying police members (who lost interest when they found Patricia was not in the car) This incident happened after it became clear that State Security, in the person of Zizi Kodwa was working with the Free State management to try and find out what the Mashale couple (who have both been reporting corruption for fifteen years) knew about any ministerial involvement in corruption – which is the reason that Patricia’s personal cellphone was illegally seized.

A similar incident to that of last week – but without the verbal abuse – happened in September 2022 when a large group of uniformed, armed police arrived at the Mashale home to effect a malicious arrest of George Mashale (the children’s father). He was not at home and the child called his sisters, who arrived and discovered there was no arrest warrant. Surely he must have wondered why, when his mother and father had served the SAPS with distinction for years, why they were now turning on the family. These, and other abuses of the rights of the minor child, were reported to the SAPS National Commissoner and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Police in December 2022. No action whatsoever has followed, except further police abuse in the form of illegal surveillance and serious verbal threat and abuse. There is absolutely no accountability in government, and Parliament is not acting on it.

The rights of Patricia Mashale to freedom and security of her person (Section 12) have been seriously breached by the ongoing threats and attempts on her life emanating primarily from the SAPS in apparent collusion with the court, Mashale’s dismissal from the police was illegal, and in breach of Section 33 (Just Administrative Action) causing the family serious financial hardship. Impartial justice (Section 179(4) has been denied to her. The family’s right to privacy (Section 14) has been violated by continued surveillance of their home.

Our Constitution, Concourt, and the Children’s Act, emphasise the crucial role of the primary care giver of minor children which has historically, in all societies, been the mother (normative change giving this right to men is a recent development). The SAPS, who are charged with upholding our laws, are guilty of denying the Mashale child the right to his mother’s care, which she dare not give, because she may risk not only her life, but also the lives of her children if she does so.

The conduct of the SAPS and the courts (upper guardians of children) violates Article 18 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Right that ‘The family shall be the natural unit and basis for society. It shall be protected by the State, which shall take care of its physical and moral health’ Our South African state has violated the Constitutional rights (Section 28) of this family, instead of protecting them.

Instead of deploying all available Crime Intelligence operatives to find four missing girls in Bloemfontein last weekend (the body of one was found) and an SANDF member who had disappeared (his clothing was found), and stopping a break-in at the magistrate’s court then, CIS were deployed to terrorise the Mashale family We, the taxpayers (including the Mashales) are paying for the police to deploy scarce resources to keep people who obey the law, and report corruption, under surveillance, while violent crime rockets.

The President and Minister Cele are in Bloemfontein this current weekend, spouting the usual platitudes about violence against women and children. Who do they think they are fooling : The actions of government speak far louder than any of the rhetoric regularly spewed out by politicians, including about the protection of whistleblowers (they do not need incentives : All they need is to be protected, and not to lose their jobs). To put it as politely as possible, they suffer from very severe, chronic, cases of a psychological disorder termed cognitive dissonance.

The Presidencies of Mandela and Ramaphosa could not be more different, especially when it comes to children. It is President Ramaphosa who bears the responsibility for the abuses suffered by the Mashale children – and others – at the hands of the police because he refuses to remove the Minister who, in running the police operationally himself, is fuelling a lawlessness led by SAPS management. Our President also turns a blind eye, not only to the pethora of allegations (and cases) of criminality, and his lying under oath at the Inquiry which dismissed him as national commissioner, against Cele, but he even allows him to run all the police oversight bodies – IPID, the Civilian Secretariat, and even, it seems, the Police Committee in Parliament, himself. Ramaphosa has turned us into a de facto police state in which politicians, not civil servants, run our institutions.

When it comes to the care of our children, Cyril Ramaphosa’s legacy, when it comes to abusing their rights, both by acts of omission as well as commission, could not be more different to that of Madiba. – and history must judge him for the great damage he has done.

Under cross examination during the trial, Macadam [the prosecutor]conceded that the laying of charges, and media publicity surrounding them, were effective in imputing in the minds of the general public the guilt of those so charged, even if they were subsequently found innocent

The above quotation relates to one of many malicious prosecutions brought against competent SAPS members in the past three decades, that in which the accused were top detectives whose investigations had threatened to expose the involvement of senior ANC members in KZN in the carnage in Richmond in the latter 1990s. They were completely exonerated and won a civil action against the state but the trial cost then Director Eric Nkabinde his position as head of detectives in KZN (a major blow to detective services in the province) . This malicious prosecution of good cops has continued, unabated, and the most recent victim – joined in a prosecution with other investigators he had no connection with – is Hawks detective Warrant Officer Makhubo. Makhubo was charged after he had opened the now notorious second docket for Defeating the Ends of Justice in the Senzo Meyiwa murder case. The serious counts he and several others faced included assault, torture, kidnapping and extortion. On 8 August all the accused were found not guilty on all charges, the brief Judgment in the Johannesburg High Court referring to the complete lack of evidence needed for conviction (SS74/20). However, through his Meyiwa investigations, Makhubo’s life remains in great danger.

Warrant Officer Makhubo, who has been a detective for thirty years, suffered this shocking treatment for doing his job well following his appointment in 2018 to join other investigators dealing with the murder of Senzo Meyiwa. As have other Hawks members, he has had his share of successful convictions, the most recent being that of taxi-cum-political hitman Fisokuhle Ntuli on six counts of murder (a Nongoma IFP councillor plus witnesses) for which he received six life sentences. According to my records, this is one of only a few known convictions for dozens of politically-linked killings in KZN. Ntuli is Accused No 5 in the Meyiwa case currently in court. He had been arrested and denied bail in 2018. Makhubo realized there were shortcomings in the Meyiwa investigation, including that a key statement had been removed from the docket after the witness had given that statement to six previous investigators. His investigations revealed that there was sufficient evidence to charge those in the house with Meyiwa when he was killed, which led to the opening of CAS375/01/2019 – the Second Docket. The prosecutor to whom the docket was presented agreed that the case was a strong one, and he started to prepare the indictment for the arrest of the suspects who had been in the house. Makhubo was advised to open a case of defeating the ends of justice because key incriminating evidence had been removed. However, before the matter could proceed further the prosecutor was allegedly instructed by Gauteng DPP Chauke to charge Makhubo under an existing case which was already in progress, Hillbrow CAS 988/6/17)

This case relates to a matter in which a team of detectives recovered money stolen in Gauteng in 2006, during which time the crimes they were charged for were allegedly committed. Makhubo had not been working with them. The instruction to charge Makhubo had emanated from then National Commissioner Sitole, who had also sent a general from the Northern Cape to interrogate him with a view to charging him departmentally, but there was no evidence for an internal inquiry to proceed.

This 2017 case had initially been heard in the magistrate’s court in Johannesburg in 2018, but the presiding officer had thrown it out for lack of evidence. IPID had been ordered to gather further evidence, but it seems that had not happened when the matter resurfaced in the Johannesburg High Court in 2020. Apparently even the summons for Makhubo to appear in court was left with lawyers for the other accused.

For three years this case hung over the head of this experienced investigator, which would have been a major impediment to any career advancement. He had to attend court regularly, where no evidence was led against him. In July 2023, the truth about the extent of complicity in corruption was exposed, as summarized in a sworn statement by witness RM, who had been arrested in 2006 on suspicion of involvement in a robbery. At the time, he says he gave the SAPS R80 000 which belonged to him. Sometime in 2017 men (named, and apparently from IPID) came to him wanting information about what had happened when he was arrested in 2006, and he had made a statement about it which, he says, was the truth. The same men returned in 2018 and asked him to make another ’powerful’ statement, which included that he had been assaulted by the police, if he wanted to get his R80 000 returned to him. He then signed the second statement. However, in a further sworn statement made to a high court advocate involved in the case dated 31/7/2023), RM revealed that he had signed the false statement given him by one of the investigators, PK, ‘including assault that never happened’, and confirms that he had not witnessed others being assaulted. He says he had made the false statement after ‘a promise to get money taken by the police’ during the 2006 arrest back (it seems that the money recovered after the suspects had been arrested was linked to the robbery, and was entered in the SAPS system. This deliberate falsification by IPID in collusion with the DPP raises exttremeely serious questions about why this prosecution had been pursued, including about the role of former SAPS Commissioner Sitole, and the conduct of IPID investigators in collusion with the DPP.

The first, arising from Makhubo’s being joined to an existing case, relates to why the case against those originally accused, Maj Gen Jan Mabula and North West Province investigators, was so assiduously pursued, given the absence of evidence. These detectives had, co-incidentally, been investigating he Cato Manor unit, following media reports implicating them in dozens of murders. This strategy, of deployment of investigators and prosecutors from other provinces, had been pursued because of fears about lack of independence of KZN police, IPID and prosecutors who were colleagues of the accused. Serious allegations have been made that these arrests were driven by former IPID head McBride because the men had arrested and prosecuted members of that unit , including Organised Crime head Johan Booysen (although in the Booysen case, the culprits seem to have been senior prosecutors, especially Advocate Noko). Ironically, given his role in the prosecution of Makhubo, a November 2020 media report quotes senior prosecutor Chauke as being prepared to waive prosecution against these investigators, apparently ignoring ‘instructions from NPA deputy head Rodney de Kock to enrol the case….’ii While attempts will be made to have these prosecutions investigated, the exonerated accused will probably need to institute a civil action against the state if the veracity of their allegations are to be tested in a court of law

It is self-evident that the abominable treatment of an experienced, competent police member with a clean record, resulted from his having exposed a tissue of lies and coverups relating to the murder of Senzo Meyiwa. However, he is not out of the woods in terms of his own personal safety : The threat to his life will continue despite his having been cleared by the High Court of any wrongdoing, as the case that he opened poses a threat to extremely powerful people. There is other evidence which suggests a deliberate coverup involving various senior police members, and alleged political collusion, took place after

Senzo Meyiwa was murdered and, in the interests of justice for the Meyiwa. family, as well as Makhubo’s safety, it should proceed to trial as soon as possible. The recent brutal assassination of Lt-Col Matipa highlights the dangers posed to highly skilled Hawks detectives doing important work which may pose a threat to powerful economic and political forces, and concerns about their safety must be taken seriously.

Top lawyers engaged by Whistleblower House to provide legal assistance to Patricia Mashale have arranged for her to appear in the Bloemfontein Regional Court on 17 August 2023, with a view to having the warrant of arrest issued against her on 3 March 2023 cancelled.  The transcripts of events at court on 16 November 2022 have also been obtained, and they confirm that the presiding magistrate had told her that she did not need to appear in person if her life was in danger – she had narrowly missed being killed ten days earlier – provided her legal representative was present.  However, this crucial information had not been included in the hard copy of the court file, which showed only a page 3 for that date – pages 1 and 2 were missing from the file. Her then legal representative continued to appear for her at remand hearings but for some inexplicable reason told the court she was in ‘Witness Protection’ despite her having made it clear to him that she was simply in hiding, so no evidence of that could be provided, and the undertaking by the magistrate in November 2022 was not on record. Apparently, the offer of a remote court appearance made by the lawyer was turned down, and the warrant of arrest was issued (further detail in previous 2022 and 2023 Monitor reports).

It is hoped that the case against her and George Mashale – alleged breach of a highly suspect Protection Order obtained by Deputy Free State Commissioner Lesia against them – will proceed as soon as possible.  However, there is no end in sight to the danger to her life which prevents her from returning to live with her children, whose rights – especially those of her eleven year old son – have been seriously violated by the abominable treatment of their mother at the hands of the State, especially the President, and the ministries of Police and State Security (now subsumed under the Presidency) which, in many respects, is akin to that inflicted on those who opposed apartheid.  The origins of the persecution of Mashale lie in collusion between the State Security Agency and SAPS management in trying to find out what information the Mashale couple might possess about corruption implicating key ANC politicians and ministers in the Ramaphosa government. From March/April 2021, as threats and internal disciplinary action against Patricia commenced, this collusion was obvious. In April 2021,George and Patricia were informed that then Deputy Minister of State Security, Zizi Kodwa, claiming he was acting on behalf of the President who was concerned about reports of SAPS corruption, wanted whatever information they might have obtained in the course of their work about ministerial and ANC corruption. This included what had transpired at Nasrec in 2017 (which George had)  and links between SAPS guns and politicians (which Patricia, having been leaked information by a colleague, had reported to then national commissioner Sitole). George also met personally with Zizi Kodwa in April 2021, whereby Kodwa informed him that President Ramaphosa had tasked him (Kodwa) to establish a team who would be in contact with him and Patricia. Patricia was also at the meeting venue, but she remained in the car. The couple co-operated with the agents, to the point of Patricia allowing them to download what was on her laptop and cellphone, as they believed that Kodwa (who stopped returning calls) was operating on behalf of the President.   Patricia, who had passed a course in cybercrime with flying colours, now believes that the reason that her personal cellphone had been seized on the instructions of Lesia, was because they thought there might be incriminating information on it they had not been able to download.  

Then Deputy Minister of State Security, Kodwa featured prominently in the Zondo Commission hearings, and was found to have had a ‘tainted relationship’ with EOH Holdings boss Jehan Mackay, to whom he owed a large sum of money.  EOH Holdings provides technological and IT services.  Mackay is a former member of National Intelligence Services.  The Zondo Commission report recommended that Kodwa be dismissed as Deputy Minister of State Security, and be subject to ‘multiple criminal investigations’.  He is now Minister of Sports Arts and Culture.

In other words, Patricia Mashale’s life remains in danger because those in the most powerful of State positions believe that she may have highly incriminating information about their corruption.  She does not know what they are looking for as the most damning information she was privy to through her job in the FLASH (priority crimes, including firearms), such as access to police funds and guns by politicians, had been passed on to relevant line management in the SAPS. We do not know if they think she has something she does not have.  What is, however, obvious that they remain apprehensive that there are hidden skeletons which may be exposed if she lives – though she has taken the sensible precaution of sharing whatever she knows with trustworthy sources, and places whatever information she has in safe, inaccessible storage. They may even be bent on revenge for her having drawn attention to their corruption – which is only in the public domain because General Lesia obtained a Protection Order, and opened a criminal case, against her, and she has had to publicly defend herself.

Since her enemies are multiple it would serve little purpose for her to obtain a Protection Order, especially as the killing modus operandi, if not in SAPS detention, would be the use of hitmen.  She will need to continue to watch every move she makes – especially when travelling – and ensure that when she attends court she is accompanied by supporters – and there are many of them, because of the type of support she and George have given to police members victimized by corrupt management.  She is desperate to reunite with her family,  but she dare not as there are constantly cars coming and going and keeping her house under surveillance.  Attempts to trace them have been unsuccessful because they only display registration certificates which accompany new ownership, not number plates.  However, on 15 August 2023, one was clearly identifiable : It was a white BMW known to be driven by members of the Hawks (names and number plate known).  It was after she left the family home last November that she was almost killed.

Unless urgent action is taken to deal with unconstitutional, criminal, policing, and remove and prosecute senior politicians from government, the life of Patricia Mashale, other whistleblowers – and good police members – will remain in grave danger

Threats to the lives of Patricia Mashale and other corruption whistleblowers, like our abnormally high crime rate, are rooted in a police service which has been captured, and its management rewarded, by politicians, especially in the past fourteen years.  It is no longer along only party lines, but factional party lines, with most in senior ranks owing their positions to the Ace Magashule/Jacob Zuma axis.  Threats, ranging from malicious prosecutions to killings, have escalated against those very many police members who continue to risk their lives in dangerous work  (the top heavy, largely superfluous brigadiers and generals in management are not among them). Despite the country’s intelligence agencies bearing prime responsibility for allowing the destruction of July 2021, SAPS CIS has lurched from bad to worse since then, which, as the current crisis in this component demonstrates, is the result of unmitigated political interference by the Minister of Police, presumably with the approval of the President who refuses to remove him. Current events in CIS raise questions about whether what is happening relates to the forthcoming 2024 elections.

In addition to ministerial appointments to key deputy national commissioner positions, there has been a strategic reshuffling of ministerial KZN cohorts to strategic positions elsewhere, including at head office.  The new CIS head in the Free State was implicated in the orchestration of the killing of Sindiso Magaqa. But it is the apparent disappearance of funds and equipment (e.g. vehicles) for the CIS away from this component that raises serious questions.  CIS members at national level have been on a ‘go slow’ as they have no cars, and they need to take public transport (which may risk their lives further if they are engaged in dangerous undercover work). They do not even have stationary.  Cars were purchased for them out of their budget, but they are either standing gathering dust or sent elsewhere.  Informers have not been paid, and there is no money for basic essentials needed in safe houses.  What is going on? Is this a deliberate sabotaging of CIS, and the security of SA?

Among the ministerial appointments are those of two management members to head CIS nationally, neither of whom have training in intelligence work.  One is General Khumalo, believed to have been a former member of the KwaZulu bantustan Police Guarding unit, integrated into SAPS Operational Response Service. He was removed from ORS following a management crisis he allegedly instigated and placed In the Ministerial Task Team on political killings in KZN (never having been a detective). The structure of this team, which operates opaquely, is grossly irregular, since it reports to the minister (whose political colleagues may be suspects) and not to SAPS line management, as required by law. Despite the late Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee having agreed that the minister should not been involved in operational matters, he continues to run the police without hindrance, through deputies he has appointed (some fast tracked when he was national commissioner) to the exclusion of National Commissioner Masemola.  It was necessary, on 27 April 2023, to write to President Ramaphosa and draw his attention to the fact that his Minister of Police wanted to replace National Commissioner Masemola with one of his favoured deputies, apparently because the national commissioner was trying to exert his lawful authority, as mandated by the SAPS Act (which is thought to include necessary disciplinary action against management members close to Cele).  Before Khumalo’s appointment, the acting head of CIS who Cele had appointed in 2022, had no sooner assumed this key position than he was reported to have been robbed of his official laptop, tablet and cellphone by a commercial sex worker he had taken home.  He is then alleged to have made a false statement about what happened when a criminal case was opened.  The investigating officer, who uncovered the truth of the matter, was then charged departmentally.  As far as can be ascertained, no case has been brought against the member who is alleged to have lied under oath (but the current Head of Legal Services is Cele’s long-standing, inept, legal advisor, and it is rumoured that attempted disciplinary action by the national commissioner was stymied).   It is this same senior CIS management member, believed to be very close to the minister, who is now allegedly dispensing finances allocated for CIS budget to unknown recipients.  CIS members believe that the funds, like the vehicles, are being diverted to the political killings task team.  This team is known to run up huge operational and subsistence expenses, and to achieve, at most, few significant convictions. Periodically there are press conferences about successes but, with one exception – the conviction of a Nongoma hitman, who was given six life sentences, by an excellent Hawks detective deployed temporarily to the team, no specifics are on record. Even KZN cases it took over, in which breakthroughs had been made, have disappeared off the radar, while politically-linked killings continue, and may even be escalating, in KZN.

Crime prevention starts with intelligence, and if reports from Head Office are correct, it is grinding to a halt for lack of funds.  Where have the funds gone?  Why would they go to a unit which has already wasted huge funding, and which operates without any transparency, and has achieved virtually nothing of any significance?  What is happening to the funding?  Is it being siphoned off for political purposes ahead of the 2024 elections?  All this has been communicated to the Parliamentary Committees of Police, Intelligence Oversight, and SCOPA, and copied to Treasury, with a request than an urgent audit of SAPS funds be undertaken by the office of the Auditor-General. There has been no response, even by way of acknowledgement.  Where is parliamentary oversight when the collapse of SAPS intelligence services gives criminals free rein and leaves South Africa wide open to further anarchy?

How is Patricia Mashale – like all those who do the right thing and expose corruption – going to stay alive, given the odds stacked against her by the most powerful politicians in SA? Threats to her safety have escalated since Khumalo took over CIS, as it was he who was deployed by Cele to track her down in Bloemfontein, and harass her family,  as reported to Parliament in May 2023,

If Patricia Mashale is killed, we know which police and ministers are implicated, and that the ultimate blame will lie with President Ramaphosa by his failure to stop ministerial criminality.

‘The courts are independent and subject only to the Constitution and the law which they must apply impartially and without fear favour or prejudice’ (Section 165(2) SA Constitution

The Thabo Bester case has exposed cover ups by Free State SAPS management, Police and Justice Ministers, and now it seems that this case receives preferential treatment in the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court.  In April 2023 Zolile Sekeleni, father of Bester’s partner Nandipha Magudumana – himself a major role player in Bester’s escape from prison – was released on unopposed bail. Recently, Bester himself was allowed to appear in court remotely.  However, the offer by her then legal representative for whistleblower Patricia Mashale, whose life remains in grave danger, for her to appear remotely in court on 3 March, was turned down by the presiding magistrate.  Her current situation is dire because this same court has colluded in abuses of domestic violence legislation by granting suspect ‘harassment orders’ to police members to stop their corruption being exposed. Worse still, these courts seem to have no regard for the way in which their actions, as in the case of Mashale, result in gross violation of her Constitutional rights and those of her children, especially her minor son.  Like the SAPS, Department of Justice staff are deeply divided with those who strive to implement the law professionally silenced by fear of exposing corruption among their colleagues, including those who collude with police management members – a fear which is palpable in this regional court. While all this is happening, Chapter 9 Institutions remain silent in deference to the violators.  The disgraceful treatment of Mashale by Parliament – bowing and scraping to the SAPS and their Minister, instead of holding them to account, is a case study illustration supporting Hon Judge Zondo’s timely warning that Parliament continues to fail in its oversight function, for Magashula’s Free State remains firmly captured.  What is completely inexcusable is that neither Chapter 9 bodies nor Parliament appear to care about the way the children of Mashale – especially the minor son, whose rights are spelt out in detail in the Constitution – have suffered grievously because of the inhumane persecution of their mother.

Free State SAPS management and ministerial collusion in 2022 Bester cover up

On 7 April 2022 the body of an unidentified man at the Bloemfontein government mortuary was claimed, as a supposed relative, by Magudumana. On 29 April the same body was found in the local Bloemspruit river. A senior mortuary staff member reported to the Bloemspruit SAPS that a crime had been committed, for the body had previously been in the mortuary, and asked for a criminal case to be opened. The request was declined, and it subsequently transpired that the matter was being handled by provincial management. Later in April, another body of a man who had apparently died before or after being brought from a taxi rank to a Bloemfontein hospital was claimed, as a relative, by Magudumana. That body, subsequently identified as that of Katlego Bereng, should not have been released by the hospital as the cause of death had not been properly established. Bereng was subsequently found to have been murdered.   On 27 April, Magudumana’s father hired a car which, on 29 April, was used by an accomplice to transport Bereng’s body to the Magaung maximum security prison, where it was found, badly burnt, in Bester’s cell, on 3 May; it was identified as that of Bester.  Allegedly, the crime scene was interfered with by police investigators who tried to disguise the smell of petrol on the body. DNA tests subsequently revealed the body was that of Bereng, not Bester. Although the autopsy was not nearly rigorous enough, it did reveal that his skull had been fractured, confirming he had been murdered – which begs questions about who murdered him, and how Magudumana knew that his body had been taken to hospital.  That the body in the cell was not that of Bester was known to SAPS management (and by extension, the police minister who is close to them) by August and, shortly thereafter (through JICS judge Cameron) to the Minister of Justice.  However, it was only months later, through a leak to the media that the public became aware that Bester had escaped, his presumed body having been substituted by that of an innocent man.  Would they have ever known had the media leak not occurred?   

Collusion Bloemfontein courts and police

Increasingly, SAPS management members in the Free state have turned to its courts to silence colleagues – and the media – who speak out about corruption, Shamefully, Family courts – which are not even dealing adequately with serious gender-based violence crimes – have been assisting them in covering up by issuing them, willy-nilly, with ‘harassment orders’.

Patricia Mashale’s problems had started after she reported alleged Free State management corruption to National Commissioner Sitole in January 2021. In August 2021, one of those she had named, Deputy Commissioner Lesia, obtained a harassment order against her in the Family Court, and she immediately applied for a recission (he claimed that Whats Apps circulating about him within a group of police members, which included her and husband George, were derogatory).  Her reports to Sitole had been made, internally, in terms of anti-corruption legislation and Oath of Office, and it was Lesia himself who placed the matter in the public court arena. The matter dragged on for over a year, with a huge waste of SAPS resources by Lesia on a private, civil, matter of his own, until judgment turned down Mashale’s recission application- without any evidence having been heard – over a year later.  She was then charged with breaking the Order because of an interview the SABC had conducted over three months before the Order was finalized.  Charges were then changed to bring them under updated legislation intended to deal with serious crimes involving domestic g violence (as opposed to Whats Apps).

Mashale had been forced into hiding in latter February 2022 after receiving credible reports that she would be arrested on trumped up charges and ‘disappear’.  Then, and since, she has been told that bail would be refused and, given what has happened to her colleagues speaking out about corruption, there is evidence of collusion between certain prosecutors and police accused of corruption in opposing bail (one member has, illegally, been denied bail application for six months).  While it initially appeared that her anti-corruption work had only threatened SAPS management members, it is now known that they were collaborating with State Security officials, including a senior government functionary against whom the Zondo Commission had recommended criminal investigations. They apparently believed that she and George had damning information which could further expose their corruption, probably including about the siphoning off of SAPS money to politicians. Inevitably, since he colludes with the Magashule police, the Minister of Police is implicated.

After being criminally charged with breaching the harassment order in September, Mashale appeared in court, protected by close associates, at a remand hearing on16 November, ten days after she had narrowly escaped being killed.   After she explained her situation to the court, including that prosecutors were alleged, with evidence to back it up, to collude with police accused of corruption , the magistrate agreed that she did not have to appear in person (Lesia always attended court with a phalanx of armed police members), provided her lawyer represented her, and that he would note the request for an independent prosecutor. At the January hearing a legal representative appeared for her, so it was assumed that the court was aware of the undertaking given.  However, it now transpires that there is absolutely no evidence on the written court record of what happened at the November hearing, despite the recording machine having been in working order (the magistrate’s comments are confirmed by independent witnesses who have made statements, and the transcripts have been applied for).  Mashale had assumed that the same would apply on 3 March, when a legal representative was present, but the presiding magistrate ordered that she appear in person – despite her life being in danger, a threat assessment being available, and the request of a remote appearance having been made – and then issued an arrest warrant because Mashale was too scared to do so.  It is known that not even courts are safe for witnesses and whistleblowers, as an assassination in Wynberg recently, and the shooting dead of Glebelands witness Sipho Ndovela at Umlazi court in 2015 demonstrate. (Umlazi police were well aware of the threat to Ndlovu’s life). 

Free State court managers, the NDPP and Ministry of Justice, and the Magistrate’s Commission, have been asked to investigate reports that a senior prosecutor, who is alleged to have a family relationship with one of Mashale’s persecutors, participates in meetings of magistrates at which court rosters and presiding magistrates are determined.

As is the plight of most South Africans, who lack the funds to engage good lawyers, Mashale has suffered through lack of adequate legal representation.  She wanted the court order immediately appealed but discovered it had not been done, and the fact that her lawyer had apparently told the court she was in Witness Protection – a blatant untruth – has counted against her as the court wanted proof about it.  She immediately dispensed with his services (he is, co-incidentally, now representing Thabo Bester) and sought the services of an experienced advocate who could, if necessary, on a pro bono basis, take the matter to the High Court. It was a fruitless search. However, she is very grateful to the University of the Free State Law Clinic for agreeing to act as briefing attorney, and special thanks also go to Whistleblower House which has confirmed recently that it will employ the services of an experienced criminal advocate.

While no effort was made to find convicted murderer and rapist Bester and Maguduma until the truth of what had happened exploded in the media, Mashale’s name (because of a few fairly innocuous Whats Apps she had received) is now on a widely- circulated police ‘wanted’ list – all because she did the right thing and exposed corruption. Minister Cele had – until it was publicly exposed, and apparently without the knowledge of the National Commissioner – deployed his CIS henchmen from KZN to hunt her down, harassing her family in the process. One of Cele’s recent appointees to CIS in the Free State was implicated in CIS in KZN in the killing of Sindiso Magaqa.

Eighteen months of virtual solitary confinement-cum-house arrest  – and the gross violations by this government, and its courts, of the rights of the minor Mashale child

Mashale is owed many months of salary by the SAPS, but she lacks funding for legal fees for civil action.  She has been assisting the Special Investigation Unit with, among other things, investigations into serious pension fraud, but even her fraudulently paid out pension monies, sitting in an unclaimed fund, have not been transferred to her.   Her own health has suffered very badly from her isolation, but the worst pain for her is the separation from her children and her inability to care for them emotionally and financially, as she has done for the past thirty years.

The Mashale family has always relied on two salaries to sustain their household and ensure all their children’s needs are met.  Now there is no money for university fees for a student daughter and schooling costs for an eleven-year old son.  She is grateful for the limited financial assistance she has received (limited because NPOs, even internationally, do not have nearly enough funds to meet legitimate demands, and the government provides no financial assistance for whistleblowers) but that does not meet the children’s needs.  It is the South African state, through its Executive, SAPS and courts, which are, through this despicable treatment of Mashale for reporting their corruption, guilty of breaching international charters and the SA Constitution regarding the rights of her children.

The African Charter on human rights emphasizes the right to family life, especially for the wellbeing of children, and the UN Convention on the rights of the child highlights the crucial role of the state in protecting children’s families. The rights of children are enshrined in detail in Section 28 of our Constitution, and they are given legislative impact in the Child Justice Act of 2008.  The context for the ‘best interests’ of children is the crucial need to maintain the stability of the core family and its existing parent/child relationships, and the extent to which the children’s needs are being met, including in protecting them from harm. From the narratives of her older children and her minor son. the fact that she has done an outstanding job as a mother could not be clearer.  The consequences of separating young children from nurturing parents are potentially serious.  For fear not only of her own death, but of potential harm to her children if she stayed with them, Mashale went into hiding because their family home was under constant surveillance..  

Living in isolation, Mashale considers that the worst thing about what has happened to her is being away from her children. As she puts it : It is not standing alone that is the hardest, its being forced to leave your children and not be part of their achievements, their jobs, their heartbreak and their development anymore….’  She apologises to her children for having misled them about what was expected after 1994 : .

’ That is much, much, worse than apartheid and that’s the reality, the ANC government has become the deadliest weapon against black people and they will keep on hunting and killing whistle-blowers…’[My italics; similar sentiments have been expressed by other black Africans]

Her older children describe, in heartbreaking detail, how their lives have been torn apart and turned upside down, unable to bring friends to their home given ever-present surveillance, constantly looking over their shoulders to see if they are being followed and worrying every single day about whether their mother will be killed.  The worst affected is her eleven-year old son. In late 2021 he had to be moved from his boarding school because the family car was followed all the way from Trompsberg to his home in Bloemfontein by police in unmarked vehicles, who lost interest when they found his mother was not in it. Immediately after Lesia opened the breach of court order criminal case in September 2022, armed policeman arrived at his home when he was alone with a relative to arrest his father, who was not at home – without an arrest warrant. Months later TRT members with rifles arrived to deliver another ‘harassment order’ for which they forced his carer to sign (a grossly irregular court procedure).   Now, when he is sick, his mother who has always been very close to him, is not there, and it is his older sisters – working and studying – who act as substitute mothers.  He does not understand what is going on because these police are from the very same SAPS that both his parents have served with distinction for many years.  Recently, a huge contingent of armed police arrived at a shop Mashale’s older son often goes to and arrested – and then released – someone at the shop.  His mother worries that he is being tracked because her persecutors believe he will lead them to where she is.

For all the attention this government pays to our Constitution, it might as well not exist : As Mashale puts it :    

  ‘I am deprived of a normal life with my children and family, our Constitutional rights have been suspended by the South African government….sanctioned to exile right in front of the world, we are under constant surveillance with compliments of the taxpayers contribution…….’

The rights trampled on include those described under apartheid by the TRC (Volume 2)  as ‘gross human rights violations, including   ‘mental or psychological torture  (isolation akin for most of the time to solitary confinement) severe ill-treatment (attempted killing, and all forms of inflicted suffering which includes mental harm) and harassment, the threat of violence and surveillance .  Constitutional rights breached include Section 12 (Freedom and security of person), and Section 21 (Freedom of Movement). Mashale’s ‘dismissal’ from the police was illegal, breaching labour legislation informed by Section23 of the Constitution and Section 33 to ensure Just Administrative Action. The continued surveillance of the family home, and the children’s fears of being followed, is in breach of their right to their privacy (Section 14).  Worst of all is the State’s failure to uphold Section 28(b) of the Constitution which decrees that every child has the right to family and parental care.

Expectations that the courts will uphold the Constitution have been dashed by those Justice Department officials who fail to administer ‘impartial justice (Section 165) and, instead of exercising much-needed oversight of police investigations, choose to side with accused senior members widely accused of gross corruption.  By refusing to give Mashale the privileges it accords to rapist and murderer Bester (a remote appearance), and issuing an arrest warrant for her – thereby making it easier for her police persecutors to  kill her – the court has forced her – to try and safeguard her right to life (Section 11), and potentially the lives of family members if she is with them – to distance herself even further from her family, the family who love her so dearly and who she loves and misses so very much. She knows that that, were she to be arrested, she would almost certainly be denied the bail given to a man who played an integral role in orchestrating Bester’s escape from prison.

In terms of Section 8 (1) of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution applies to all our law and binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all the organs of State. The Chapter 9 bodies which are supposed to ensure that these rights are upheld have failed whistleblowers in every sense of the word, and, under current leadership, have created the distinct impression of taking instructions from the governing party, especially the Minister of Police.

By turning a blind eye to what has been reported to all of them about the gross violations suffered by Mashale and her children, the serious danger to her life, and the partisan ‘justice’ administered by the Bloemfontein court, are they – particularly those who have the power to stop these rights abuses, and have failed to do so –  not all, themselves, in breach of their Oath of Office to our Constitution?

This morning , 18 May, SAPS member Gonasagren Padayachee was formally charged, in the magistrate’s court at Esikhaleni, for shooting dead Kwazi Ndlovu, who had just turned sixteen, in his family home in Esikhaleni, near Richards Bay just after his sixteenth birthday. Kwazi lay on the sofa watching TV after his parents and younger sibling went to bed, and was probably asleep when Padayachee and others forced their way into the family home and shot the child dead with a rifle. Padayachee was a member of the Cato Manor based Organised Crime unit and he and others (who presumably acted with common purpose, and should also have been charged with Padayachee) claimed that they were looking for escaped prisoners. To rub salt into the parents’ wounds, the SAPS then claimed that Kwazi was a criminal with a gun – despite this allegation, from the testimonies of teachers and friends, being a blatant falsehood. To its shame, the leading company holding funeral policies for the family, refused to pay for the burial expenses, reiterating that the boy was a ‘criminal’. That was only the start of the grievous suffering the parents and younger brother have endured for the past thirteen years at the hands of the State, which has kept the wound raw and denied them closure.

Immediately after the shooting, Mr and Mrs Ndlovu received assistance from the School for Practical Legal Training at UKZN, through its then head, Professor Robin Palmer, to pursue justice, including through a planned civil action. Overseas funding was raised for this purpose. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in KZN declined to prosecute and this decision was subsequently challenged by top detective and Zondo Commissioner investigator, the late Frank Dutton, who submitted a report on why a prosecution should have happened then. Advocate Palmer, who was skilled in such matters, arranged a formal inquest – as he was confident it would lead to criminal charges – and the docket was accessed and scanned (it subsequently disappeared from the SAPS at Esikhawini, to which it had been returned by the DPP). However, before the inquest could take place, members of the Cato Manor unit were formally charged in 2012 for, among other things, dozens of murders. These charges followed reports by Sunday Times journalists about the unit acting as a ‘hit squad’. It should be noted that the Sunday Times investigations had started with inquiries into North Coast taxi violence in which police members were implicated, and the trail had led to the Organised Crime unit (see April 2022 Monitor report ‘The myth that black lives matter in South Africa : The return of apartheid policing and justice’).

When criminal cases were opened (or re-opened in some instances), the formal inquest plan fell away. Mr and Mrs Ndlovu were terrified for their safety and funding was raised to fortify their home. When asked about these fears in a television interview, Mr Ndlovu commented that he had ‘died’ when they had killed his son. Instead of sifting through these cases to prosecute those with the strongest evidence, the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) sounded a death knell to the chances of success by adding puzzling ‘racketeering’ charges against the accused, and the then head of Organised Crime, Booysen, despite the operational head of the unit being his subordinate, Colonel Olivier. These doomed charges dragged on for years, rubbing more salt in the parents’ wounds as the men appearing in publicised court appearances, celebrated in media reports as heroes. To persecute them even further, SAPS management issued a subpoena for them to give evidence at an internal disciplinary hearing despite their not having been able to give any incriminating evidence, as they had been locked away in their room away from the events. Legal intervention was needed to stop this unnecessary trauma.

In July 2019, after all the charges were withdrawn against the accused, the dockets were sent back to the KZN DPP for decisions to be taken on an individual case basis about prosecution. Families were to be notified. When, over a year later, nothing further had been heard, a lawyer for the Ndlovu family ascertained that the DPP had declined to prosecute any cases, and had sent them for inquest. She claimed that IPID was supposed to have notified families and had not done so. Had an enquiry not been made, no families would have known about her decision.

Towards the end of 2020 a long appeal process commenced, providing the NDPP with further evidence supporting the call for those who killed Kwazi Ndlovu to be charged. This evidence included reports from top experts in forensic pathology and ballistics, based on a carefully re-constructed crime scene, questioning the state’s versions of events (it should be noted that, in its initial investigations, IPID (Independent Police Investigative Directorate) investigators had allowed the suspects, i.e. police members, to take their own statements). The application to appeal the decision was handled by a Deputy NDPP who turned the appeal down. The DPP offices (national and provincial) continued to argue for a formal inquest, despite full evidence already being in existence – and there being no funding for a suitably experienced criminal advocate to handle an inquest. A personal appeal was made to Advocate Batohi, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, pointing out that it was she, Constitutionally, who was responsible for deciding on appeals. Correspondence about the matter continued for well over a year and finally, in January 2023, the NDPP advised that the KZN DPP had decided to charge Gonasagren Padayachee. That it has taken almost four months to do so appears linked to crossed wires between the DPP and IPID in KZN, and internal problems in KZN IPID linked to a suitable provincial head not having been appointed (and should not be appointed until serious problems with the minister, who interferes in all senior appointments, have been dealt with).

The conviction rate for serious violent crimes, including murder, is extremely low in South Africa, so there are countless cases in which victims and their families are denied any justice, for which both police and the prosecution service must share the blame. Of these countless cases, that of the suffering at the hands of the criminal justice system of the Ndlovu family must be among the worst. Their child was mowed down in the safety of his own home by people who are supposed, constitutionally, to prevent crime, and then underwent secondary victimization at the hands of police and Justice Department officials. Their inability of obtain any type of closure has been painful to witness and one can only hope that the court process will shine light on the gross brutality of what happened to their precious son, and allow them long-denied closure.

For obeying the law and her oath of office as a SAPS member, a year in hiding on her own has taken a serious toll on Patricia Mashale’s health, and the financial and emotional wellbeing of her family.  She has always been a devoted mother, ever-present for the Mashale children, who range in age from adulthood to an eleven-year old son. The rights of this child, especially, have been seriously violated by SAPS management and our government executive – caring naught for our Constitution – do nothing to stop it.   Now his mother has disappeared.  On Friday 3 March, at a remand court hearing for a malicious prosecution, attended by her legal representative, the presiding magistrate, ignoring an undertaking given by another magistrate, produced a warrant for Mashale to be arrested for not appearing personally in court.  The warrant had been signed by the magistrate from the neighbouring town Botshabelo and, refusing submissions made to her by Mashale’s legal representative, the regional court magistrate instructed that the warrant be executed immediately. The submissions included threat assessment reports by Crime Intelligence made before an attempt on her life in November 2022 in which she narrowly escaped death.  The decision by the magistrate was tantamount to a death sentence since Mashale had been reliably informed that bail would be refused, allowing the police to kill her.  Reports of police looking for Mashale to execute the warrant gave her no option but to leave what she considered a safe local hideaway and spend days on the move, reminiscent of the lives of those hunted down by apartheid police. From the Executive down, our government, gorging on its obscene appetite for power and wealth, does not care if its police behave exactly like those of the apartheid regime, thereby   dishonouring the struggles of those countless of thousands of freedom fighters who died for a society which would implement the values of the Freedom Charter. The conduct of this government is, in some ways, even worse than their predecessors in that they, and their police, blatantly breach the Constitution so many died for with impunity, using taxpayer’s money to do so.

Events leading to Mashale going underground : SAPS encourage, and fund, civil actions by police members, with apparent complicity of certain officers of the regional court

Previous reports have detailed how Mashale’s persecution followed what has been confirmed as a Protected Disclosure to National Commissioner Sitole about alleged corruption in Free State SAPS management.  Of relevance to the current court case is that Deputy Free State Commissioner Lesia obtained, under suspicious circumstances, a Protection Order against Mashale based on mildly derogatory comments about him circulating among SAPS members, including Mr and Mrs Mashale (only they were singled out for court action). Because of a recission application the order was only finalized as the second instalment of a SABC Cutting Edge programme on Free Sate SAPS corruption was about to be aired, and it was too late to stop the broadcast. The SAPS had apparently tried to interdict the SABC from airing the second programme after the first had been broadcast but, according to their legal advice, they had all the evidence substantiating the allegations against Lesia, which was also produced during the programme.  Mr and Mrs Mashale had been interviewed three months before the broadcast, i.e. when the order had not been finalized. However, Lesia immediately opened a case against them for breaching the court order, and they appeared in court and were given bail.  Since late 2021, Mashale has opened more serious cases against Lesia, but they have not been prosecuted, nor has the DPP made any determination since the main docket against him was handed over to their office in August 2022. Ironically the same DPP is, immediately, pursuing all charges by Lesia against Mashale because he claims allegations made against him personally are false, which is clearly a matter for civil, not criminal, litigation. .

Despite this being a civil matter between Lesia and the Mashales, SAPS management turned a blind eye to a huge waste of SAPS resources, when large numbers of police vehicles and members accompanied him to court proceedings, which even intimidated a Family Court magistrate. It gets worse :  Instead of ordering SAPS to use their own time and money for civil actions, management has apparently encouraged them to obtain protection orders in the domestic court when allegations of corruption are made against them, at taxpayers’ expense.  This has been confirmed by the spokesperson of the National Commissioner during a radio interview late in 2022 and, since then, two other protection orders have been obtained, one – against Patricia’s husband George – by suspended  Free State CIS head Agnes Makhele, currently being prosecuted with former Acting Commissioner Phahlane for fraud. The third, most recent Order, against Patricia, was obtained by a management member accused of being implicated in the closure of a case in which a minor was raped.  Following the exposure of this rape docket, and an appeal to the Free State DPP, the investigation has been re-opened.  This protection order was obtained recently at Trompsberg, a considerable distance from Bloemfontein, and was delivered to the  Mashale family home by a uniformed member carrying an R5 assault rifle who forced the Mashale relative who was there with their minor son to sign for it. She asked to call Mr Mashale first, but the request was denied and she was forced to sign for the return of service. By now, everyone knows that Patricia Mashale is in hiding and that she has not been staying at her home address – which is under constant taxpayer-funded surveillance – for over a year, so the prospect of her receiving the Order is obviously zero and SAPS are fully aware of this.

Since Lesia opened this malicious criminal case, the Mashales have had to appear in court on remand. During her court appearance on 16 November 2022, Patricia requested that certain senior public prosecutors, one of whom is alleged to sit on the committee which assigns magistrates to specific cases, not be involved in her case, and that a new team – prosecutor and magistrate – from another province be allowed to deal with their matter, since the Free State team are seriously conflicted because of their relations with Lesia. She is adamant that her request was granted and placed on record on 16 November 2022 at Court 24.  She avers that the magistrate told her that, if she did not feel safe, she did not have to appear in court if her lawyer was there. On the next remand date, 31 January 2023, no new, independent, prosecuting team had been deployed; her lawyer was in court representing her, and the case was remanded until 3 March, the magistrate apparently being satisfied that her lawyer was acting on her behalf, as had been agreed, so no warrant of arrest was issued. She assumed that, with her legal representation present, she did not have to appear on 3 March because her situation remained the same, as did the agreement, since there were no known alternative agreements on record. However, a new presiding magistrate ignored representations about the agreement previously reached, and the fact that the Human Rights Commission had, in 2022, confirmed that she had made a protected disclosure about corruption, and she had refused to accept the CIS threat assessment report that Mashale’s life was in danger (which had been done before the attempt on her life in November 2022), insisting that she attend court, failing which an arrest warrant would be issued.  She also reportedly refused to accept a remote link up appearance by Mashale.  Mashale had been forewarned that, should she be arrested, it had already been decided that bail would be refused.  It was a foregone conclusion that, were she arrested and incarcerated she would disappear or die – yet another statistic in over 200 deaths in police custody annually.

The context in which this scenario played out is all important as it represents an increasingly broken justice system in South Africa :  Like the SAPS, the prosecution service is deeply divided, with credible dedicated prosecutors and magistrates striving to do what is required while others, some apparently related to corrupt SAPS management members, have become accustomed to serving political and/or nepotistic interests.  A climate of intense fear pervades Department of Justice employees in the Bloemfontein court, extending to concerns about the safety of family members, amidst rumours of hitmen deployment. This climate of intimidation and fear may extend to lawyers having to appear in the court as well. How can such circumstances serve the interests of justice, impartially. 

Correspondence requesting investigations into reports of the use of manacles in court cells, and the irregular attendance of a prosecutor believed to be related to, and colluding with allegedly corrupt SAPS management members in meetings in which magistrates for specific cases are discussed and finalized was addressed to the National Director of Public Prosecutions, the Free State Director of Court Operations and the provincial Court Manager, and Justice Minister Lamola – and copied to Parliamentary Committees on Justice and Police – on 15 February – but there has been no response whatsoever.  Should they not respond by 17 March, this apparently serious perversion of justice will be followed up with the office of the Chief Justice.

The latest threats

Over the weekend of 4/5 March Patricia Mashale, having changed her telephone number, disappeared, fueling fears that her disappearance meant she was dead. It was only on Thursday 9 March that those close to her became aware that she had left what she thought was safe accommodation and stayed on the move. By the end of the week, physically and emotionally exhausted, she was at least safe, but her whereabouts were unknown.  Plans to take the court battle forward to the High Court, formulated after the issuing of the warrant of arrest and before her disappearance, are hopefully still on track.

However, the latest development, apparently confirmed by credible sources, is that hit men from KwaZulu-Natal have been deployed to the Free State by SAPS CIS to kill her husband George. Together they have fought corruption in the police for well over a decade (all on record) and they have huge support from non-management police in the Free State, and further afield, endorsing what they call the ‘Mashale train’ that fights corruption and stands for the rights of police members who take their oaths of office seriously.  The head of CIS, appointed a few months ago by Minister Cele, is General Khumalo who is said by colleagues to know nothing about intelligence, but is close to Cele. During his brief deployment in CIS under the notorious Richard Mdluli, when all and sundry were welcomed to the CIS fold, around 2011, he was embroiled in a corruption scandal involving thousands of rands, and apparently hastily redeployed to Operational Response.  Following serious internal conflict in that component, circa 2018, a home was found for him in the grossly irregular, ministerial controlled, KZN political killings task team, despite his having no detective experience. His home, as a bantustan police member, in  KZN is known for its deadly hitmen and, as the murder of corruption buster Sindiso Magaqa has revealed, CIS are among those who make use of their services.  Now they are apparently hunting down George Mashale, who has fought the corrupt system alongside Patricia since 2008, during which time then national commissioner Cele buried a damning investigation report, implicating senior SAPS management in serious corruption. This corruption was exposed by Patricia and George Mashale and its architect, Hamilton Bheki Cele would do anything in his power to silence those who are exposing his deep dark secrets (George now has a paper trail confirming irregular ‘grabber’ procurements, as alleged in suspended General Vuma’s Protected Disclosure – believed to have been given to prosecutors). If anything happens to George we at least know exactly who to blame. It seems that President Ramaphosa approves of Cele’s  grossly illegal, life-threatening conduct, as he has just extended his cabinet appointment.

Exposed : Contempt for the Constitution and the gross hypocrisy of the Ramaphosa government

The affirmation of human life is central to our Constitution yet, despite the Executive and parliament having been made aware of the serious threats to the life of Patricia Mashale – confirmed by attempts to kill her – for over a year,  they have taken no action whatsoever to stop it happening by dealing with the source of the threat, the South African Police Service and its minister.  Their sheer hypocrisy is shown up by continuing platitudes about the importance of whistleblowers, and the fight against corruption.  Zondo Commission reports are ignored, as are those urging drastic reform of the SAPS and State Security and how it should be done. What is happening is the outcome of the State Capture years, but the New Dawn has taken no remedial steps, and seems to support the sustained efforts of Minister Cele to continue what he started in 2009 : The ruination of the SAPS and a return to apartheid policing.

What has happened to Patricia Mashale, and now George Mashale, is symbolic of the treatment of anyone who dares to expose corruption.  Some are arguing that there should be international criminal action brought against this government for its use of taxpayer-funded organs of state to kill people who expose its criminalized, corruption-ridden institutions.  The blame goes beyond the governing party and extends to those in opposition, who fail to use the powers they have to make constructive interventions, preferring to spend their time and resources squabbling among themselves for the trappings of power. Patricia and George Mashale desperately need to return to their family home, to nurture their young son, and celebrate his brother’s twenty first birthday with him.  Should they try to do so, under present circumstances, those children will probably end up orphans.  Who is going to take the Constitution seriously enough to do something about their plight?

Nothing illustrates the perversion of the law in South Africa better than the persecution of people who obey it by those tasked with upholding it – the SAPS.  Patricia Mashale, subject to a malicious prosecution arising from a civil action   for acting as her oath of office as a police employee required, now fears to attend the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court for a hearing on 31 January as she has been reliably informed that she will be arrested on some new charge and detained in cells. For someone like Mashale, who has evidence of gross SAPS corruption, and who has become a champion for the rights of hundreds of persecuted and illegally dismissed police members, detention in a police cell is a likely death sentence since there are over 200 deaths in SAPS custody annually.  Currently, there is a focus on prosecutions for deaths in detention during apartheid.  Surely it is even more outrageous that so many people continue to die at the hands of the police in our constitutional democracy?  Does nobody care?

The case for which she and her husband, another anti-corruption fighter, are due to appear arises from a civil action brought by Deputy Free State Commissioner Lesia who obtained a dubious Protection Order based on what he claimed were insulting Whats Apps circulating among a group of police members, including the Mashales.  It followed Mashale’s January 2021 letter to the National Commissioner, in which she dutifully, as her oath requires, alleged corruption in appointments and promotions, in which his name was included.  Lesia now claims that the Order he obtained had been breached because of an interview the SABC had conducted with the Mashales before the Order, which was subject of a recission application, was finalized. The Order was finalized a day before the programme, recorded three months earlier, was broadcast and he had been informed by the SABC that it was too late to stop the broadcast.

Since he applied for a Protection Order against Mashale in the Family Court in August.2021, Lesia has regularly appeared in court with a members of Operational Response Services and SAPS vehicles, despite his matter being a personal civil one and not a police one.  In July 2022 there were eleven SAPS vehicles outside the court, and even the magistrate hearing the case was intimidated. The context is one in which there is a country-wide shortage of vehicles and members to deal with violent crime, and thousands of calls to 10111 go unanswered because of a serious shortage of operators.  On 28 January there was a dangerous standoff between communities near the KZN border with Mozambique, Mozambiquans, and the local police, who locals accuse of being implicated in hijacking and contraband goods smuggling.  They claim Mbazwana SAPS does not even have a functioning police vehicle.  This is but one example of the rampant abuse of SAPS resources while violent crime flourishes. Management of other northern rural SAPS stations have also complained to KZN Monitor that they do not have sufficient vehicles and members to cover the large areas they have jurisdiction over, where roads are also generally bad.

National SAPS management, and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, have been repeatedly apprised of this waste of scarce police resources by General Lesia, on his own personal, civil, matter, yet no action has been taken to stop it.   Similarly, they all know about the serious threats to Ms Mashale’s life, and why she must remain in hiding, after two attempts on her life in 2022, but no action is taken against those responsible – the very people tasked with protecting lives, the SAPS.  In an urgent letter to the National Commissioner on 5 December, General Masemola was reminded that he would bear personal responsibility should the harassment and threats to the life of Ms Mashale continue.  All correspondence to SAPS management is ignored for they, like ministers, treat our Constitution with contempt, including as it relates to rights to life, and to transparency and accountability.  Unfortunately, even Parliament seems not to take it seriously.

In a further squandering of taxpayers’ money, the Mashale home is under twenty-four hour surveillance.  This treatment of the family is also a gross violation of the rights of their eleven-year old son, deprived of his mother’s nurturing care, and living in fear of her being killed.  At the end of 2021 he had to be, abruptly, moved from the school at which he was a weekly border because the family car was followed for a long distance from there to his home by SAPS members, thinking his mother was in it (she wasn’t, so they lost interest).  All this has been drawn to the attention of Parliament, but the minister continues to do exactly as he pleases, and to break the law with impunity.

The case for which the Mashales are due to appear was moved from the Family Court to the Regional Court, presenting further problems.  A dossier is being prepared for the National Prosecuting Authority about complicity between SAPS management bringing malicious prosecutions and senior prosecutors, and the grossly irregular shackling of people detained in court cells, even on trivial charges.  After Ms Mashale was allowed to address the court during her last appearance, the magistrate agreed that independent prosecutors from another province would handle the case and that, because her life was in danger (this November appearance was ten days after the failed assassination attempt) she did not have to appear in court in person provided she had legal representation. It must be stressed that even courts are not safe for people who are under threat of death : In May 2015 Glebelands resident Sipho Ndovela, a witness in a murder case, who had also been charged maliciously by the Umlazi SAPS, was shot dead in the court grounds despite the SAPS having been warned that his life was in danger (see ‘Assassination at Umlazi Court’ under 2015 reports)

Given that she is in hiding because her enemies are in the SAPS, and this latest threat, how can Ms Mashale now attend a court in which a phalanx of police, abusing taxpayers’ money, are waiting to pounce on her and arrest her on some new, trumped up charge, with potentially fatal consequences for her?  Why is no one doing anything about our descent into an apartheid police state?

ADDENDUM : ROUTINE TREATMENT AT BLOEMFONTEIN REGIONAL COURT : SEE FURTHER INFORMATION WHICH FOLLOWS IMAGE

Above is a picture of Colonel C, a middle-aged experienced forensic social worker in the Family Violence Unit in the Free State, who was illegally dismissed at the behest of a colleague who seems to have been threatened by her competence, and then criminally charged with crimen injuria by the same colleague, in collusion with prosecutors, who sent her to cells for the day, where she was shackled (two prosecutors are allegedly related to a member of SAPS management who targets police members exposing corruption).  There was no substance in the charge and, after months of trauma, it was withdrawn, with the magistrate having harsh words for police members who were abusing court processes in this way).  Her years of experience (which the colleague lacked) is lost to the police and the victims she assisted. When a complaint was lodged with the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Free State the response was that shackling of people appearing in court was routine. Even courts, it seems, ignore the South African Constitution

Last night, 5^th /6^th  November, Patricia Mashale, who was returning to what she thought was a safe hiding place after visiting her children, narrowly missed being assassinated.  The car she was in, driven by her son-in-law, was closely followed from her daughter’s home to where Mashale is in hiding in Bloemfontein. It was chased for a long distance by a double cab vehicle, and it was only by taking skillful evasive action that the driver managed to lose them. At 01h00 this morning she and her son-in-law were hiding in his car a long distance from their homes.  She could not return to where she has been staying, nor could she take refuge in a police station, as the assassins had obviously been sent by one or more people in SAPS management, who would have alerted stations to inform them if she arrived.  Were she to be detained at a station, she would either disappear to some far-off detention facility, or even die, mysteriously, in a cell. That is the reality of life for people like Mashale who take their oaths of office to report corruption seriously.  In her matter it is the very department tasked with preventing crime that is committing crimes of corruption and violence. That they are able to do this with impunity is the fault of the country’s Executive, and police oversight bodies, including parliament.

Mashale, who has been living in hiding since March 2022 since reporting gross corruption in Free State management to the National Commissioner, is also a human rights defender, standing for justice for many competent, illegally dismissed members, and organizing legal assistance for them – and for herself.  She is making reports to various relevant agencies including IPID, the Public Protector, the Special Investigation Unit, and the Presidency.

The South African government and its parliament should be hanging their heads in shame that, in a Constitutional democracy, Mashale and others  – Thabiso Zulu being in a similar situation – should have to live in hiding, without any support or defense from attack, because they expose corruption, support others who do so, and work for social justice.  Since early 2022, the parliamentary portfolio has been fully briefed on threats to Mashale, and to the gross corruption in Free State management, including disastrous (and dangerous) handling of firearms-related matters.  What purpose does a Presidential Advisory Council serve when whatever is paid to its members would be far better served in assisting real corruption fighters to stay alive?  In the cases of both Mashale and Zulu, the attacks emanate from the police and/or politicians to whom they are linked.

It is common knowledge that these problems start with the current Minister of Police, Cele, who overruled the President when he promised protection for Thabiso Zulu. Many existing problems of nepotistic appointment and corruption (like the Forensic Laboratory fraud which was subject to a forensic audit after it was reported to then National Commissioner Phiyega) originated during his tenure a national commissioner – from which post he was dismissed by President Zuma following a Judicial Inquiry which found, among other things, that he had lied under oath).  He himself stands accused of various crimes, including irregular interference in procurement (by suspended Deputy Commissioner Vuma), classifying a report on hit squads in Crime Intelligence in KZN, and signing off on a corrupt World Tender in 2010 (the document bears his signature).  Why has he not been charged? Why is he untouchable?

Minister Cele has never had the interests of competent black African police members at heart.  When ANC representative and subsequently an MEC in KZN he ignored the plight of twenty seven POCRU members who had been maliciously charged by a right wing old guard management member (an NPO lawyer squashed the charges). He failed to intervene when competent, professional detectives were maliciously charged because their investigations exposed politicians. The case of the Richmond violence in the late 1990s is a conspicuous example :  When one of the province’s best detectives made arrests which threatened to expose ANC leadership involvement in the violence, he and his team were abruptly replaced by a new group, and a cover-up ensued. The team leader and his commander were then maliciously charged and, although completely exonerated, the prosecution had cost the commander his appointment to head detectives in the province -which went to a former security branch member. A brilliant detective, the commander was by far the best candidate, but Cele had been trying to get him to move away from KZN. Why?  A police member whose rapid promotion Cele was pushing had been implicated in attacks on trade unionists in Cele’s South Coast area in the latter 1980s. The real questions are: What was Cele doing in the 1980s before running off for MK training in Angola, and why does he employ an apartheid era policeman from the notorious Murder and Robbery-cum-SB units of the most repressive apartheid era as his advisor?

There is increasing evidence that SAPS management is flouting labour legislation with impunity in dismissing decent, serving members who are not part of corrupt, nepotistic networks.  That is bad enough, but new evidence suggests that some members of management are running criminal, money making syndicates.  It is possible that some act in collusion with employees of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF).

Evidence started emerging when senior Free State administrator, Patricia Mashale, received emailed notice of her dismissal on 1 March 2022, following her reports to the SAPS national commissioner of alleged corrupt activities on the part of certain members of Free State management.  This dismissal, like many others, is illegal, and court action is underway.  Her salary for February 2021 was never paid, and nor were other monies due to her, such as leave pay.    Hers is not an isolated case : Other members have been dismissed in breach of labour legislation; some are still fighting for reinstatement after winning arbitration awards, and have not been paid monies due to them. Some are waiting for many years of back pay. In one matter the long-serving member has a Labour Court Order in which both the Minister and National Commissioner of Police are in Contempt of Court, and legal action is pending against them both.  Legal actions for reinstatement continue, but management knows that dismissed members lack the funds to secure good legal representation, while they themselves squander taxpayers’ money (which should be used to employ more police members) to prolong the disputes.  Disturbingly, there seem to be no checks on the extent of wastage on legal costs by the SAPS. A senior legal officer admitted that the country could not afford these costs. 

As Patricia Mashale discovered when she started doing her tax returns in March 2022, it gets worse.  Taxes were reflected as having been paid for her after she had stopped receiving a salary at the end of January.  She immediately reported what was happening to SARS, who have been requested to provide feedback.  She later discovered that deductions for policies were also continuing – but her medical aid payments had been stopped.  In other words, she is still on the SAPS system as a salaried employee – raising questions about who is receiving her salary.

On 6 September 2022 Mashale was called by a captain from the Service Termination Centre at SAPS national headquarters. He asked her for information he needed to complete her application to withdraw her pension from GEPF.  She made it absolutely clear to him that the police had no business whatsoever to deal with GEPF on her behalf as it is the employee who applies to the pension fund directly for a pension withdrawal. The police are only required to confirm termination of service. She told the captain to stop what he was doing immediately.

On 1 November Ms Mashale received a text message from GEPF confirming that her pension benefits application had been received.  She had not made any application herself. She called the Pension fund and was told that the application had been received that same day and that the fund was busy processing it. Normally, it takes months to process applications, and from the messages sent, Mashale has worked out that the application had been processed out of office hours suggesting that whoever did it had access to the GEPF database before the office opened.  Co-incidentally, a very senior Human Resources manager against whom a complaint of corruption had, with Mashale’s assistance, been lodged, with IPID is a member of the GEPF board.  She is also on the board of the SSSBC (the Bargaining Council which oversees labour disputes involving police members; that a senior SAPS employee sits on this board represents an obvious conflict of interest). The Human Resources component of the SAPS features in many allegations of mismanagement and corruption (which are on record) and needs to be investigated.

Ms Mashale pointed out to the GEPF employee to whom she spoke that she had never applied for her pension benefits, and she queried how they could be processing this application. She was informed that it was complete, with all the required supporting certified documents, including her identity document and those certified by her bank.  She had never signed any documents, nor had she been to a bank for any certification.  She has also closed the bank account she was using when employed.   Mashale was told that the documentation had been submitted by the police.

In other words, what she discovered was massive fraud, as she herself had not applied for payment nor signed any documents, including at a bank, so her signature has been forged – by the police, if it was they who approached GEPF. According to Mashale, all such communications and documents from provinces must be signed off by Human Resources at Head Office and the National Commissioner SAPS. A case of fraud is being opened.

Other dismissed members have reported receiving GEPF pension payouts without signing documents for it, so the police must have made the applications for them, illegally, if they had not signed personally.  SAPS members who are part of a growing network of police who are trying to expose pervasive rampant SAPS corruption have been advised to obtain pension fund statements from GEPF and check them against deductions made from their salaries.  

IPID has dragged its heels on cases opened by Ms Mashale, including the illegal seizure of her personal cellphone over a year ago. Its failure to investigate the systemic corruption in the SAPS is conspicuous (its refusal to do so at the height of the carnage in Glebelands hostel, Durban, cost many lives). The blame for its apparent lack of will to tackle corruption lies with parliament, which has not, six years after a Constitutional Court order to give IPID Constitutional independence from the police ministry, even tabled relevant legislation.  A full forensic audit of the SAPS salary system, especially relating to dismissed members, is urgently required, and the office of the Auditor-General will be among those who will now be approached to conduct an in-depth investigation into SAPS financial mismanagement – and what it is costing South Africa.

The extent to which the SAPS is being mismanaged, which is a product of the state capture years, is much worse than is generally realized. Have the events of July 2021 not made it obvious that the state of policing poses a serious threat to our country’s stability? Government commissioned reports have, for three years, made clear the urgency of police and intelligence agency restructuring, but their recommendations have fallen on deaf ears. There seems to be no political will to change policing from what has become an apartheid-type institution flouting the law with impunity to a constitutionally-compliant service. The many competent members who take their oath of office seriously are cowed into ignoring the rampant corruption which places their own lives at risk. Actively opposing corruption leads to job loss, and may also be life-threatening, as in the current plight of whistle-blower and police rights defender Patricia Mashale. The danger she is in has been drawn to the attention of the President and Parliament for the past nine months but, while mouthing platitudes about the importance of whistleblowers, no effort whatsoever has been made to stop the persecution of Mashale by her own erstwhile colleagues, and to provide her with protection to carry on her crucial, corruption-fighting work. It is the President and his Executive who know of her plight, and have failed to act, who will bear responsibility should any harm befall Patricia Mashale and her family.

Bloemfontein-based Patricia Mashale and her husband George, formerly an SAPS operational member, have been exposing corruption in the SAPS for the past thirteen years, and paying the price of malicious arrests and disciplinary actions against them. The chain of events which led to her going into hiding six months ago started when she wrote to then National Commissioner Sitole in January 2021, sending him – at his request – details of abuse of power and the selective use of disciplinary procedures implicating Free State SAPS management, supporting the allegations with detailed documentation, including affidavits from affected members. She says that the National Commissioner found that her complaints were valid and summoned Free State management to head office.

It was thereafter that a departmental action was instituted against her, followed by Deputy Free State Commissioner Major-General Lesia obtaining a harassment order against her in the Bloemfontein Family court in August 2021. That departmental action, which dragged on until early 2022, was not pursued because of the intervention of the South African Human Rights Commission, which afforded her Whistleblower status confirming that she had complied with the provisions of the Protected Disclosure Act. (the contract of the CEO who assisted her was not renewed). However, by then months of harassment had followed, including the illegal seizure of her personal telephone and surveillance of her family. Attempting to protect herself at work, she secured an interim protection order against Lesia, but did not pursue it after she was, illegally, dismissed seven months ago. After the Harassment order had been finalised in August 2021 Mashale had lodged a recission application.  That matter was to drag on for months, until August 2022, with postponements and, apparently, some bewilderment about why the matter was in the Family Court. During all these court hearings Lesia, opposing the recission application, was in court with a large contingent of Operational Response Team members for what was, essentially, a private civil matter. In this action he has claimed reputational damage because he discovered that Mashale was among those forwarding Whats App messages circulating among colleagues about him (which had been sent by a lawyer, including to the National Commissioner). Of all those who received these messages, she and George were the only ones singled out for Lesia’s claim of reputational damage.

When the recission application matter came before court for finalization in May 2022, the presiding magistrate, referring to the members in eleven police vehicles Lesia had brought with him, said she felt intimidated. She also spoke of having to keep the file in her possession to ensure its safety, while worrying about her own. Noting that it was not a Family Court matter, she referred it to the Regional Court. In delivering Judgment on 1 September, a regional court magistrate turned down the recission application on various grounds, all of which could have been challenged had any evidence from Mashale been heard (which had not happened).  Ironically, he had not even touched on the merits of the rescission application, which were given in detail by Mashale citing the fact that Lesia was her line manager and that he had already followed internal disciplinary procedures by charging Mashale departmentally (which was the action which eventually fell away following the SAHRC intervention).

The magistrate simply ignored the fact that this had been an internal labour-related matter and that interference from the court might have devastating implications for junior employees attempting to report their superiors. By this time, Mashale had acquired legal representation, and her lawyer had apparently not even been able to access the docket, raising questions about whether it was still complete. An Appeal against the judgment is planned.

The Whats Apps referred to were circulating among police members but, by bringing this action, Lesia has placed it, and allegations about his own conduct, in the public domain. According to the court order, the Respondents may not damage the Applicant’s reputation by spreading false allegations against him – which begs the obvious question about how the public knows whether allegations (by their very nature unproven) are false or not, since there has been no canvassing of the veracity of the allegations in open court proceedings, as would have happened had he lodged a civil action against Mashale.

The day after the Judgment was handed down, Lesia reportedly contacted the SABC and told them to stop the broadcast of a second episode on gross corruption in SAPS in the Free State, in which Mr and Mrs Mashale had been among those interviewed. This two-part series had been filmed in May 2022 and the first episode was broadcast in Special Assignment on 26 July, titled ‘We won’t be silenced’. That programme showed shocking footage of the serious, unwarranted, victimization of police members by a senior manager (not Lesia), which had led to severe physical illness requiring their medical boarding. After the first episode was broadcast the Free State SAPS Legal Head complained that it had shown the police in a bad light – which it did, justifiably – and exerted pressure on the SABC to stop the second episode from being broadcast on 2 August. The broadcast was deferred while legalities were sorted out, and the programme was scheduled for broadcast on 2 September 2022. It was on that day, immediately after Mashale’s recission application had been turned down, that Lesia is alleged to have called the broadcaster, instructing them to halt the second instalment. They refused, and a follow up with the producer confirmed that it was too late to do so. This episode features interviews with Patricia and George Mashale, and with a former colleague, Col C, a middle-aged social worker in the Family Violence Unit, who had been illegally dismissed and then maliciously charged by a less experienced colleague with crimen injura. When she reported to the senior prosecutor at Bloemfontein Court she was sent to the cells, and leg irons were placed on her for the day. She appeared in leg irons before the magistrate, who took no action. Even those accused of serious crimes such as murder, or even treason, are not treated in this way in South African courts (but she and Mashale are not the only credible female police members treated in such an appalling manner, including by their incompetent but well- connected female colleagues).

On Friday 16 September a large contingent of armed Operational Response police arrived at the family home to arrest George Mashale, who was away (Patricia remains in hiding away from her family). The intention had obviously been to arrest him and keep him in prison for the weekend, with no guarantee for his safety, until the law required that he appear in court on Monday 19th. Many years of monitoring SAPS conduct shows that they frequently make malicious arrests on a Friday, and sometimes those arrested are abused in custody. Their youngest child, eleven years old, who was at home with Patricia’s brother, shot a video through the window, exposing the huge armed police presence. His older sisters arrived and demanded to see a warrant of arrest for their father, which the police could not produce. Among the police present was the station commissioner from another station not having jurisdiction over the Mashale home area. No response was received to inquiries to the local station commissioner about whether this armed contingent had reported to that station as is required by Regulations. On the following day, Saturday, social worker John Clarke, who runs a whistle-blower support group, called an urgent press conference to highlight the danger to the Mashale family and the harm caused to their young child. It was subsequently discovered that, uninvited, the Acting National head of Crime Intelligence, who is known to have no competence or experience as an intelligence officer, but who is related to a former Free State management member was present, without having been invited, spying on what was being discussed.

Mr and Mrs Mashale were ordered to appear in the Bloemfontein regional court on 20 September, where they were informed that they were formally charged for breaking the Harassment Order – despite their having had no control over the SABC footage which had been filmed in May being broadcast. On 21 September when they appeared in court for a bail application, their offence was treated as a Schedule 5 crime because the magistrate considered that it should fall within amendments made to the Domestic Act. Mashale was therefore arrested by the magistrate again and had to apply for bail, although she was already charged and released on a warning by the investigating officer on 20 September. She was then released on a warning again. This bizarre act of the magistrate is implying double jeopardy, where a suspect is being charged for the same offence twice. The case has been postponed and transferred to the Regional court on 16 November 2022. The charges are spreading false allegations and harming the reputation of Thabang Solomon Lesia, who is the Deputy Provincial Commissioner of Policing in Free State.

Because the Mashale couple had muddled the August 2021 Family Court dates, and arrived at court a day later -which confusion is explained in the recission affidavit of Ms Mashale as being purely accidental -and because they had no legal representation, Lesia obtained an Order based on a forwarded message, and screenshots of another, that the Mashales had forwarded to SAPS colleagues who would, presumably have been in a position to make their own informed opinion about the veracity or otherwise of the message content (and from the content of those messages, his claim of reputational damage appears exaggerated). No evidence whatsoever was led before this Order was granted and, despite the timeous application for a recission order it was not granted. There had been no direct harassment, even electronic, let alone any threats, between the Mashales and Lesia, yet now they are treated, for bail purposes, as are those accused of attempted murder, rape, and drug dealing. Where is the justice?

What is particularly relevant is that criminal cases have been opened against Lesia by, among others, Patricia Mashale, including the illegal seizure of her personal cellphone in 2021. Because of the serious problems with IPID, referred to below, those cases are now part of an investigation by the Public Protector into the threats and ill treatment of Ms Mashale. The other pertinent question is why the DPP has not made any determination on any of the serious charges that Mashale pressed against Lesia, but is immediately pursuing an insignificant charge of spreading false allegations?

The context in which police members can deploy scarce resources to settle their own personal scores, which Lesia has done, is one in which the whole state, including the SAPS, was criminalized during the state capture years, with departments turned into private fiefdoms for politicians to usurp the role of departmental heads. Like other SAPS management structures, that in the Free State is a product of grossly irregular appointments and promotions which are a product of the ‘Gangster State’ tenure of Free State Premier Ace Magashula and his Jacob ally. The current Free State Provincial Commissioner was Second Respondent in an Interdict Application brought by then IPID head McBride in 2017 to stop police under her command from obstructing IPID investigations into then the Acting National Commissioner Phahlane (it was never finalised).

Free State and National SAPS management is also a product of what had become a norm during the Zuma years – ministers and provincial MECs involving themselves, and often directing, departmental operations.  This unconstitutional ministerial involvement continues under the Ramaphosa presidency.  Recently suspended Deputy National Commissioner Vuma (not from the Free State), in her July 2022 Protected Disclosure statement sent to the President and other high ranking officials in the criminal justice system, details the ways in which procurement abuses have continued, together with ministerial micro-managing. She claims that Police Minister Cele berated her for the awarding of a cellphone tender, and refers to the procurement of an interception device (grabber) by the minister and an intelligence operative – raising questions about the legality of all this interception. She states that the national commissioner received political instructions to suspend her because she refused to sign for an irregular procurement another deputy commissioner was pressing for. Vuma has been suspended and that same deputy commissioner, also from the Free State, is acting in her position. Vuma claims she has been threatened, and fears for her life. Referring to her letter to the President, police union SAPU issued a statement reinforcing their previous call to him to institute a Board of Inquiry into the collapse of policing. That, it seems, is wishful thinking.

That neither Parliament, nor the Minister, take their oaths to the Constitutional seriously, is shown by their non-compliance with a 2016 Order by the Constitutional court, drawing attention to the unconstitutionality of IPID (the body which is supposed to provide oversight of the police) which lacks independence from the Police Ministry. Six years later, the required legislation is still outstanding. There is no independent oversight of the police because the Minister, engaging in irregular operational matters himself, runs IPID and the Civilian Secretariat and, it seems, the parliamentary committee on police as well which has failed completely in its oversight function. The current minister has also ignored the important recommendations of the May 2018 report of the Panel of Policing Experts appointed after the Marikana massacre. As Minister he bears responsibility for the July 2021 anarchy  by failing to request the deployment of the SANDF to keep national highways clear and run roadblocks timeously, and should have resigned or been dismissed then.

While the Minister bears constitutional responsibility for preventing and combating crime, that responsibility is also shared with the Executive, including the President. The President and Parliament are well aware of the threats to the lives of Patricia Mashale and her family but they are, willfully, allowing the persecution of good police members, and the collapse of policing, to continue. Justice for victims is becoming increasingly elusive. The treatment of Mashale and other whistle-blowers like Thabiso Zulu shows just how far we are travelling down the police state road as executive members of government ignore the Constitution with impunity. How many more times must the public be reminded of the immortal words of Pastor Niemoller, while the freedoms and the rule of law for which countless thousands gave their lives are being jeopardized by an increasingly authoritarian, secretive, unaccountable government?