It is common knowledge that prominent whistle-blower and relentless corruption fighter Thabiso Zulu remains under threat of death because Minister of Police Cele. has refused to provide him with the protection instructed by the Public Protector, and he has even overruled a personal undertaking by President Ramaphosa to do so. Cele also, completely irregularly, oversees the work of an inter-ministerial task team on political killings in KZN, headed by a non-detective SAPS member, which appears to have no legal status in terms of the SAPS Act. This team operates opaquely, apparently helping itself to dockets which are not necessarily politically- linked. Despite its regular blasts of hot air about a few selected cases, it has achieved little in the past three and a half years. One of the cases it has been investigating is that of the October 2019 attempted murder of Thabiso Zulu, in which it has allegedly, willfully, ignored crucial evidence provided to it, while acting unlawfully against Zulu in illegally seizing his phones in October 2021. However, it is this team’s handling of the murder in 2017 of Zulu’s close friend, Sindiso Magaqa that is now placing Zulu’s life in great danger, following the release on bail on 16 February of three alleged, very dangerous hitmen, by the Ixopo Court, despite the seriousness of their crime.
The Sindiso Magaqa case
Sindiso Magaqa, a former ANC Youth League leader and corruption-fighting councilor, together with two other Umzimkhulu councillors, were shot and injured in the area in July 2017. Magaqa subsequently died in hospital. With survivors providing information about the attack, including about the vehicles which had been used, progress in investigations was being made by a credible detective. After its establishment, in mid-2018, the task team took over the docket and, in March 2019, five men were arrested, with charges against two of them (one a senior politician and prime suspect) almost immediately dropped. Three of the alleged hit men, for whom bail had been refused until 16 February, remained in prison. Their accomplice, Jabulani Mdunge, accused of firing the shots, had been shot dead before the arrests.
That this attack was well planned was confirmed by media reports six months ago about the existence of a counter-intelligence report describing how apartheid-era security police members in Crime Intelligence in KZN used slush funds to run a political hit squad that killed Magaqa, (and also engage in torching trucks) They are alleged to have killed Jabulani Mdunge, fearing he would talk. Completely irregularly, the report on these activities had apparently been handed by then national head of intelligence, General Jacobs, to his MK colleague Minister Cele, in 2019. Jacobs should have handed it to the national commissioner, his line manager. Instead of taking any action, Cele had suppressed the report, which appears to have been classified. The existence of the report has been independently confirmed, and the identities of three former security branch members are known. One of them was named by the TRC as one of the handlers of Richmond warlord Sifiso Nkabinde, whose expulsion from the ANC led to violent conflagration in Richmond, and many deaths – including of Nkabinde himself – in the latter 1990s.
Sifiso Nkabinde’s death was almost certainly linked to the likelihood that his bitterness at the way he was treated would have led to his exposing others who had co-operated with apartheid agents. What was clear at the time was that ANC leadership was determined to cover-up any evidence which pointed fingers at leaders. A small team led by a top provincial detective had made arrests in dozens of cases and it seems that panic had set in as that team was immediately withdrawn before the arrests could expose any prominent ANC representatives. A cover-up of evidence and sham trials followed. A key hit man who had been arrested was – against all warnings about what would almost certainly follow – released on bail. He was executed at the scene of a massacre following the assassination of Sifiso Nkabinde. There are parallels between these events in Richmond and investigations into political killings twenty years later. Thabiso knows which politicians want him dead (he has collected his own evidence and disseminated it widely). The establishment of this inter-ministerial task team, as progress was being made in the Magaqa case, suggests that the lessons of Richmond had been learnt by the ANC – especially given the alleged role of apartheid security branch members in the Richmond and Umzimkhulu carnage.
Central to all these recent events is the Minister of Police, the very person constitutionally responsible for the safety and security of South Africans, who refuses Thabiso Zulu protection. He irregularly heads a ministerial investigative team (needing immediate disbandment), and is reported to have covered up for apartheid era security police who should surely have been charged for their role in the murder of Magaqa and the attempted murder of his two companions? Two of those charged, and now released on bail, were members of Cele’s TRT, the brutal ‘amaberets’ unit he established for no good reason while national commissioner, which members routinely kill and torture people. Why, almost three years after these alleged hit men were arrested, and bail was successfully opposed – for which sufficient evidence is needed – has bail now been given, and why has their trial not been proceeding. Credible reports suggest these men were plotting against Zulu in prison and, now that they have been released, he is sure they are going to kill him. Already severely traumatized by an attack which almost killed him in October 2019, and further police abuse in July 2020 and October 2021, he has even been told by an intelligence member that he will not live another week. If he is killed it will be at the hands of a complicit state. For months the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee has been provided with information about the inappropriateness of Cele’s involvement in operational matters, and about the suppression of the counter-intelligence report, yet no constructive remedial action has been taken. The buck stops with President Ramaphosa who not only appointed the disgraced former national commissioner Cele as his minister, but allows him to cancel his own undertaking to give Zulu protection, apparently giving him carte balance to continue to engage in grossly irregular interference in policing and cover up for alleged apartheid era policemen who are employed by the SAPS and funded by taxpayers. If Thabiso Zulu is assassinated, his blood will be on ministerial and presidential hands.
Re: Richmond see ‘The Scorpions : A Frankenstein Monster?’ 2003 at www.violencemonitor.com
The Violence Monitor 