On the morning of December 16 2008, taxi boss Magojela Ndimande and his bodyguard Sibusiso Tembe were travelling in his silver Hyundai Tucson SUV near the Merrivale offramp on KwaZulu-Natal's N3 when all hell broke loose.

Ndimande was a member of the KwaMaphumulo Taxi Association, whose members had been accused of ambushing and killing the police's taxi task team investigator, Superintendent Zethembe Chonco, in August 2008.

That day, Ndimande and Tembe would join the growing list of Chonco murder suspects shot dead by the infamous Cato Manor organised crime unit, ultimately commanded by Major-General Johan Booysen, who is also the head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal.

A metallic silver BMW allegedly driven by Cato Manor officers in plain clothes drew up alongside them and, without any notifying lights or loud-hailer warnings, unleashed a barrage of assault-rifle fire on the SUV.

The BMW came to a screeching halt in front of the Hyundai, and a gold metallic Toyota Corolla pulled up behind it, blocking it.

Several members of the Cato Manor unit jumped out of the BMW and Corolla, and pumped a few more rounds into the Hyundai.

Then one of the policemen calmly discharged a pistol into the bushes, apparently to make it appear as if there had been a shoot-out. Another cop smashed the driver's window of the Hyundai with his rifle butt, evidently to make it look like shots had also been fired out of the vehicle, not just into it.

"They were unmarked cars, unmarked clothes, no warning, no flashing lights," said one witness. "There was very definitely no shoot-out - the only bullets went in from outside," said another. "There was no shoot-out. The okes pulled up alongside the Hyundai and just executed them."

Ndimande and Tembe now dead, the police calmly put on their police jackets and, a few seconds later, a convoy of marked police vans arrived.

Minutes later, Booysen himself landed in a police chopper.

This is the version of events related to the Sunday Times by witnesses too terrified to go to the police or even the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). "If they can execute people in broad daylight like that, what would they do to us?" one asked.

Without their story, the official statement from the police - accepted by the ICD - is all that stands on the record.

The official SAPS version presents a completely different picture.

In a statement, Booysen says "police vehicles employing their sirens and appropriate flashing lights attempted to stop them, [but] they resisted and shot at police. The police returned fire, and [Ndimande and Tembe] were killed."

The image of Booysen landing victoriously on the scene was plastered all over newspapers the next day under the headline, "PAYBACK - Cops gun down this man and are told: Well done!".

One newspaper reported that police appeared to be heeding the call of then KZN safety MEC and now suspended police commissioner Bheki Cele to "defend themselves and shoot hard at criminals".

The ICD, the body tasked with investigating police abuses, says only that "a full investigation was done" into whether police had acted improperly - but admits that, three years later, "technical reports are still outstanding".

Ndimande wasn't the only person suspected of being involved in Chonco's killing who ended up dead.

Five other suspects were also killed by the police in murky circumstances which witnesses have described as cold-blooded murder.

One of those, taxi boss Lindelani Buthelezi, was accosted at his house in Stanger in September 2008 by eight policemen, according to court papers.

His wife, Thandeka Sokhulu, described in two sworn statements how police assaulted her, threw a blanket over her head and then shot her unarmed husband for "resisting arrest".

"I am steadfast in my belief that my husband was executed by police who entered my house that night, and will not be swayed by anything to the contrary," she says in a sworn affidavit.

This bloody trail of corpses rattled Bongani Mkhize, another KwaMaphumulo taxi boss, to the extent that he took the bizarre step of going to court in 2008 to obtain an interdict to prevent the police from killing him.

In his affidavits, Mkhize said he was "reliably informed by certain members of the SAPS who are close to the investigating team that the policy being adopted is to kill or eliminate all [people] suspected of involvement in the murder of Chonco".

Booysen responded, saying Mkhize had "no reason to be afraid", as "it is not the intention of the police to kill anyone".

On November 14 2008, Judge David Ntshangase gave an order preventing the police from "unlawfully killing, injuring, threatening [or] harassing" him.

Unfortunately for Mkhize, it didn't help.

A few days later, he was leaving his girlfriend's house one morning when he noticed that his Toyota was being followed by the Cato Manor unit. They cornered him in Durban's busy Umgeni Road and, according to witnesses, began shooting into the car.

One member of the police unit, according to witnesses who spoke to Sunday Times, stepped out of his car, walked calmly to the window of Mkhize's car and fired into the vehicle, finishing him off.

Another witness, who captured images of Mkhize's alleged assassination by police with his cellphone, was assaulted by angry officers after they realised that they had been caught on camera. The cellphone with all the evidence was smashed on the ground, in full view of other witnesses.

At that moment, the metallic silver BMW - the same one that had been at Ndimande's killing - screeched to a halt. One of the Cato Manor policemen, whose name was mentioned to the Sunday Times, leapt out and began screaming at the men.

"Are you stupid," he yelled. "Why are you doing this in broad daylight?" This was also heard and witnessed by several uniformed police at the scene.

These are just two of the seven bloodcurdling cases investigated by the Sunday Times - killings which often took place in broad daylight, all committed by this elite KwaZulu-Natal police unit based in Cato Manor.

The others include:

• Five robbery suspects shot dead in their minibus near Camperdown on the N3;
• An ATM bombing suspect shot dead in a Durban service station toilet;
• Another ATM bombing suspect killed at his home in Pinetown;
• Two men suspected of slitting the throats of prominent Durban lawyer Naren Sham and his family, who were shot dead on the same day during two separate pointing-out incidents - which involve suspects going to the scene with police; and
• A taxi boss and his friend shot dead at a house in Mandeni.

In all of these cases, seasoned senior policemen, as well as ballistics and pathology experts - speaking to the Sunday Times on strict condition of anonymity - raise serious doubts about the official versions of events.

While the ICD was established to probe these kinds of alleged police abuses, question marks hang over whether it has the capacity or will to do any serious investigation.

In many cases, postmortem examination results have yet to be submitted - even years after the event. And when they have been done, experts are not convinced of their thoroughness.

In Ndimande's case, for example, forensic expert Jacobus Steyl's report concluded that, contrary to police claims, "there is no indication that shots were fired through closed [car] windows from the inside to the outside".

Despite the ICD claim of a full investigation, Steyl's reports say the ICD had not even done basic ballistic tests, suggesting that rogue cops know they have nothing to fear from the ICD.

At least on the Mkhize case, the ICD forwarded its findings to the public prosecutor, and a formal inquest will now be held.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Booysen denied that this unit under his control conducted a series of "hits" in revenge for cop killings, and urged witnesses to come forward.

"That's why we have legal processes," he said. "Let's allow these cases to be investigated by the ICD and presented to the prosecuting authority."

But the witnesses who spoke to the Sunday Times are petrified of coming forward, lest they, too, end up being taken out on a quiet road while "resisting arrest". -investigations@sundaytimes.co.za