Two weeks before suspected Isis leader Abdella Abadigga was allegedly abducted from the Mall of Africa in Midrand, Johannesburg, by South African special forces, the standing committee for refugee affairs revoked his refugee status.
Department of home affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza told TimesLIVE Premium they were now investigating the circumstances under which Abadigga received refugee status in South Africa in the first place.
His brother, Abdurahim, said Abadigga came to South Africa in 2004 seeking asylum from the Ethiopian government from whom he feared deadly persecution.
Abdurahim brought an urgent application in the Johannesburg high court early this month alleging that the South African military had abducted his brother at noon on December 29 from the Mall of Africa.
SANDF special forces commander Herbert Mashego has since claimed in a responding affidavit on behalf of himself, Peters Communications Trust — a special forces front company allegedly involved in the abduction and of which he is a director — and the minister of defence and military veterans that “it is merely a coincidence that Mr Abadigga ... [was] abducted on the day in which the SANDF special forces were doing a training exercise at Mall of Africa”.
Abigga, his bodyguard, Kadir Abotese, and his car are still missing and Gauteng police are investigating a case of kidnapping.
According to the department of home affairs, Abadigga received refugee status in 2009.
But that didn’t stop Abadigga from flying back to his home country in 2012, using his Ethiopian passport, an act that would lead to the decision to revoke his status — but this only happened 10 years later.
Information shared with TimesLIVE Premium by the department of home affairs has revealed that the process to revoke his status started on February 3 2020. Two years later, the standing committee for refugee affairs finally made the decision to revoke his refugee status. This was on December 15 2022, two weeks before his disappearance from the Mall of Africa.
In 2017, Abadigga was arrested by authorities in the eastern DRC on suspicion of terrorism-related activities. He was returned to South Africa on March 14 2020, at the same time as DRC authorities released thousands of pre-trial prisoners to depopulate prisons to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus.
His return to South Africa from the DRC stunned South African counter-terrorism investigators who had been investigating his alleged links to crimes committed in South Africa and his alleged links to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) terrorist organisation.
“It was total panic stations because no-one knew where the terror financing suspect was, how he had returned, why he had been returned, and on whose authority he had been brought back,” said a Gauteng police crime intelligence source whose section helped to investigate Abadigga.
He would achieve notoriety in March 2022 when the US Treasury department placed him and three other individuals living in South Africa on a sanctions list for allegedly funding and co-ordinating Isis activity in Africa.
During Abadigga’s detention in the DRC he was allegedly interrogated by individuals from intelligence agencies from across the world, including members of the South African police’s counter-terrorism team.
TimesLIVE Premium sources said Abadigga was arrested on October 22 2017 at Goma airport in the troubled eastern DRC after it was suspected that he and three other foreign nationals who travelled there from South Africa, were trying to reach the Alliance for Democratic Forces (ADF).
He was arrested with Kenyan Ahmed Elema and Somalian Abdi Adan. Two days before their arrival, Tanzanian national Hamisi Shahame AKA Shahem Issa was also arrested.
It was total panic stations because no-one knew where the terror financing suspect was, how he had returned, why he had been returned and on whose authority he had been brought back.
TimesLIVE Premium counter-terrorism sources allege the men formed part of an extended Isis cell which uses Johannesburg as its home base from where it funds and co-ordinates terror attacks across Africa.
According to Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Southern Africa programme head Piers Pigou, the ADF is linked to Isis.
“They’ve been involved in suicide bombings in Kampala, and they’re connected to the Mozambican insurgency,” he said.
Abdurahim told the TimesLIVE Premium his brother was arrested for being in possession of drones and cameras. He claimed that he had flown to war-torn Goma for business and that aside from his textile business he was also involved in gold and diamond trading.
Qoza confirmed that of the four arrested in the DRC, only Abadigga returned to South Africa after his detention.
Abadigga would find himself in trouble with the law one more time before his disappearance, this time at a roadblock near Orange Farm after he returned from a trip to Cape Town in October last year.
“He was driving up from Cape Town, then suddenly he disappeared. I heard that he was stopped at a roadblock by South African police and the Americans, then they took him to a police station,” said Abdurahim.
According to his lawyer at the time, Pearl Mthembu, he was arrested at a roadblock on October 23 for problems with his immigration status.
She said he voiced his suspicions to her that the US government was involved in the roadblock. She said he was released after two days after his refugee status in South Africa checked out.
The next day the US Embassy issued a terror threat, warning of an imminent attack in the Sandton area being planned by terrorists for October 29.
The attack never happened and according to then Hawks counter-terrorism unit head Tollie Vreugdenburg (now retired) no such terror threat existed and he denied any link between Abadigga’s release and the terror alert.
Abadigga’s brother remains mystified by his disappearance. “Why did they go and take him from the mall? He’s not somebody who is hiding.”
His brother’s court application to try to force the defence force to reveal information on his whereabouts is expected to continue next week.
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