WATCH | Ballistic expert maintains he was kidnapped by Madlanga’s Witness B

A police ballistic expert testifying before the Madlanga commission claimed that Witness B and her team kidnapped him while he was working on the case of murdered Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart.

On Monday, Capt Laurance Makgotloe told the commission he was the ballistic expert who attended the crime scene after Swart was shot 23 times in April 2024.

On January 7 2025, he said, he received a call from Witness B — who has already appeared before the commission — informing him that there was a mistake in his statement that he needed to rectify.

The two agreed to meet at Loate police station in Pretoria, and when he got there, Witness B allegedly jumped out of a Mercedes-Benz C class car with heavily armed men.

They then went into a room in the station. “The group then proceeded to ask me questions about the Vereeniging case and asked me where the report was,” he said.

“Upon my observation in the manner of questioning, it became apparent that I was under interrogation.

“I started having concerns about my safety due to the interrogation, given that I was only familiar with Witness B, and my concern was whether I was dealing with legitimate police officers.”

Makgotloe said after the interrogation they went to his office in Silverton for the reports, where Witness B and the officers attempted to confiscate his work laptop.

“I opened a case of kidnapping on January 8 which is being investigated by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.

“I stand by the fact that I was kidnapped because I didn’t give officers permission to take me to the offices and I was forcefully taken,” he said, adding that Witness B and her team’s approach instilled fear in him.

According to Witness B, who testified before the commission last year, kidnappings were among the strategies used to jeopardise investigations into criminal cartels.

In her testimony, Witness B had stated that Swart was killed as he was thought to have been the whistleblower who had flagged an irregularity in a Transnet tender awarded to alleged cartel member Tankiso “KT” Molefe’s nephew, Lucky Molefe.

She said Swart’s murder was instigated by Lucky, who was trying to protect his job after his employer, Transnet, discovered that he had manipulated a multimillion-rand tender awarded to a company he is linked to, SK Group.

SK Group procured metal springs from QTech, Swart’s employer, for R3.90, and sold them to Transnet for R151. However, QTech picked up on the inflated prices, and a whistleblower reported it to Transnet, Witness B said.

When Transnet started its internal investigations, Lucky approached his uncle for assistance to deal with the matter, she said.

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