Mchunu denies links with criminal underworld

For more than six months after suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu decided on December 31 2024 to disband the political killings task team (PKTT), no-one directly or publicly raised an objection to it with him, he told the Madlanga commission on Friday.

Mchunu said that in that time, he had attended several meetings with national police commissioner Fannie Masemola, including one in which Masemola gave him an interim report on disbanding the team. He had met with President Cyril Ramaphosa to brief him on the decision, and he and SAPS senior managers had also briefed parliament on it in March.

Masemola’s report was “quite an elaborate report”, said Mchunu, but no-one objected to it, “partially or in full”.

“Throughout this period — we’ve referred now to seven meetings, including a meeting with the president and a meeting with parliament — it was always open [to] anyone who didn’t like what you had done to say you must change course, and you would have changed course,” suggested his counsel, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC.

“I definitely would have changed course,” said Mchunu.

Throughout this period — we’ve referred now to seven meetings, including a meeting with the president and a meeting with parliament — it was always open [to] anyone who didn’t like what you had done to say you must change course, and you would have changed course.

Mchunu was the last witness to be heard by the commission in 2025, with Friday’s hearing ending at 10pm.

As the commission was wrapping up hearing Mchunu’s evidence, chilling news broke that “Witness D” had been gunned down in Brakpan. Marius van der Merwe, who testified anonymously for safety reasons, told the commission in November that senior Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD) officer Julius Mkhwanazi had been called to the scene after police officers had tortured and killed someone. Mkhwanazi had given instructions on how to dispose of the body, he said.

Van der Merwe had testified in the leg of the inquiry looking into allegations of collusion by members of the EMPD with the alleged criminal operations of Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.

The allegations against Mchunu relate to a different, though connected, aspect of the commission’s inquiry: that the PKTT was shut down to stymie an investigation by the Gauteng counterintelligence operations unit, assisted by members of the PKTT, into the “Big Five” cartel, of which both Matlala and Katiso Molefe are allegedly leaders.

Owing to time constraints, the commission’s evidence leaders and Mchunu’s legal team had agreed Mchunu’s evidence would be confined to the disbandment of the PKTT. Mchunu is yet to give his version and be cross-examined on the nature of his relationship with North West businessman Brown Mogotsi, alleged to be the middleman between Mchunu and Matlala, and the screenshots the commission has seen of their text exchanges.

This second part of Mchunu’s evidence will be crucial. The commission’s terms of reference say it must investigate whether Mchunu was “complicit [in], aided and abetted, or participated in” the infiltration of the justice system by crime cartels. Whether disbanding the PKTT was a good idea, whether this decision was lawful, and whether the process Mchunu followed in this regard was appropriate — all these questions are crucial because they could support the central allegation that Mchunu took and executed these decisions as part of a corrupt agenda.

Mchunu said on Friday: “I have no links with the [criminal] underworld, and I have never had any links with the underworld whatsoever.” Any allegation that there was a connection between his decision to disband the PKTT and the interests of people in the criminal underworld was false, he said.

Answering questions from Ngcukaitobi, Mchunu said the first time there had been explicit public denunciation of his decision was when KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi gave his bombshell July 6 press conference in which he made the allegations that triggered the Madlanga commission’s establishment.

Before that, he had heard only from his chief of staff, Cedrick Nkabinde, that Mkhwanazi had been repeatedly calling Nkabinde, “angry” about the decision. Nkabinde had told him Mkhwanazi had said that, if Mchunu did not withdraw the letter, there would be a “fightback”, and that if Mchunu was “clean”, he should proceed with the disbandment, “because we are going to investigate him”.

Mchunu said that in the two months before he took the decision, he had attended no meetings with SAPS senior officials in which disbanding the PKTT was on the agenda, though a “review” of the PKTT had been discussed. In addition, despite a “very good” working relationship with Masemola, he had not consulted with him ahead of making the decision.

Before Mchunu was questioned by Ngcukaitobi, he was grilled at length by evidence leader Mahlape Sello SC and commissioners about why he disbanded the PKTT, and how he did so. There were questions about how quickly the decision had been taken and why there had been so little consultation on it.

Mchunu said that in the two months before he took the decision, he had attended no meetings with SAPS senior officials in which disbanding the PKTT was on the agenda, though a “review” of the PKTT had been discussed. In addition, despite a “very good” working relationship with Masemola, he had not consulted with him ahead of making the decision.

The chair of the commission, retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, said: “You surprise everybody within [the] SAPS — [and] in particular the top management — with your decision of that day. And you do this having a very good working relationship with the national commissioner of police. You accept that that is effectively what you did?”

“Not exactly,” said Mchunu.

Mchunu’s explanation for his decision was that it was a long time coming. A 2019 SAPS study had recommended that the police build permanent specialised units and eliminate the need for ad hoc, temporary task teams. An organogram had been proposed in which political killings would fall under specialised murder and robbery units. The recommendations had been accepted and were being implemented, he said. Murder and robbery units had been established in all the provinces except the Northern Cape.

“In the minds of SAPS management … it [was] anticipated,” he said.

The PKTT was never supposed to be permanent, he said. Initially established for six months to address a specific need, its term was repeatedly extended. It had become “semi-permanent” and was working “in a silo”. By 2024, political killings had decreased significantly, and its job was done, he said. When he became police minister, the cabinet was prioritising addressing murders generally and not just political killings.

But his explanation led to even more questions. Had he verified that the newly established murder and robbery units had the capacity to do the work the PKTT had been doing? He had not, he eventually said.

Why, if task teams were now off the cards, had he directed, in the same month he disbanded the PKTT, that a task team be established to probe taxi violence and related killings in the Eastern Cape?

Similarities between the taxi killings task team and the PKTT were repeatedly pointed out by Sello and commissioner Sesi Baloyi SC. Mchunu sought to differentiate them, but Baloyi suggested: “The difference you are seeking to draw is not apparent. In fact, there is no difference.”

Mchunu will appear again before the commission next year.