The Madlanga Commission · Live public record
What’s new at the Madlanga Commission
The daily brief: every new hearing day, ruling and document on the Madlanga Commission record, newest first. No 8-hour live feed required.
Newest first
Everything new on the record
The first witness of the closed fortnight: evidence leaders ask that an undercover Crime Intelligence officer be heard with the room shut
The fortnight the public cannot see already has an application in it. Per The Citizen and Eyewitness News, the commission's evidence leaders filed on Thursday 1 October 2026 to have the evidence of a former Crime Intelligence officer, referred to only as 'Witness S', heard in camera when he testifies on Wednesday 7 October 2026. The stated ground is not embarrassment but exposure. Per The Citizen the founding affidavit, by attorney Geraldine Burger of Diale Mogashoa Inc, says of the people the officer handled: 'Should the identity of the informants be disclosed, their physical safety and possibly their lives will be put at risk.' Per Eyewitness News the officer ran covert operations to gather intelligence on an alleged organised crime syndicate and its infiltration of the South African Police Service, and the warning is that airing it publicly may alert suspects that they are being tracked or lead them to informants. Per The Citizen most of the evidence rests on records of undercover operations that have been declassified for the commission's use and are not authorised for release beyond it. The media have 72 hours to oppose, and chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga will rule after that. Three things are worth holding onto. This is a request and not yet a decision. It is the second such application live at once, alongside the evidence leaders' pending application over Major-General Feroz Khan's WhatsApp evidence, which carries a 6 October date. And by the commission's own one-year count on 17 September 2026 it would be the twentieth in-camera application in this inquiry, nineteen having already been granted. Nothing in an in camera ruling is a finding, and anyone who may be named in evidence the public cannot hear is as presumed innocent as anyone named in evidence it can.
OpenSibiya stays in custody to 7 October after the court calls for translations, and he will fight the 5 October disciplinary that came out of this commission
The bail application of suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya did not finish on Friday 2 October 2026 either, and it now runs into the week the commission goes behind closed doors. Per the Mail and Guardian the Randburg Magistrate's Court postponed the part-heard application to Wednesday 7 October 2026 after magistrate Hleziphi Mkhasibe asked for proper translations of two audio recordings played in court, and Sibiya remains in custody at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre over the weekend. Per the Mail and Guardian and Eyewitness News the day was taken up with the continued cross-examination of the investigating officer, Detective Sergeant Nokukhanya Ndlovu, who gave evidence opposing release on the ground that Sibiya could interfere with witnesses. One disputed fact in the record is now settled and one is not. The arrest was on 21 September 2026, which resolves the 20-versus-21 September discrepancy this archive has carried; the place was The Grand in Sandton, and his defence disputes how the State has described it, arguing he was arrested in the restaurant section of a premises that also has a separate hotel area. Separately, and more directly this commission's business, Sibiya will try to stop the disciplinary hearing that arises from its findings. Per IOL his attorney Estelle Kilian told the court that an urgent application to postpone the expedited SAPS hearing set down for Monday 5 October 2026 will be made when he appears, and that 'if it is unsuccessful, the defence will approach the Labour Court'; her stated reason is the pile-up of notices, including 'a further notice served, a third notice' on 30 September. Per IOL the SAPS national spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, confirmed both the date and its origin: 'We can confirm that the member in question has been served with a notice to attend a disciplinary hearing on October 5 on allegations arising from the Madlanga Commission inquiry', and that it runs as 'an expeditious disciplinary hearing, which is Regulation 9, because allegations of corruption will fall under that category'. This archive records the charges and the court dates in this matter and nothing about the complainants. A charge is an allegation and a bail hearing decides only whether a man is held. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged at this commission. Sibiya denies the charges and the allegations, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenA fifth charge for Sibiya, and the commission's own findings get their own expedited disciplinary notice
Two things were added to the record against suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya on Thursday 1 October 2026, as his part-heard bail application resumed in the Randburg Magistrate's Court. Per Eyewitness News the State added a fifth charge, negligent handling of a firearm, taking the charge sheet to five; prosecutor Velile Makhasana told the court 'a separate case number has been registered in respect of the firearm issue' and that 'the firearm was stored in his vehicle' when he was arrested. Per The Citizen the court also heard that he is now facing three separate internal SAPS disciplinary notices rather than one: a first set down for 2 to 6 and 10 to 20 November 2026, a second running as an expedited process under SAPS Regulation 9 and set down for Monday 5 October 2026, which is the one that arises from this commission's findings, and a third served on him on 30 September 2026 while he was in custody. His counsel told the court that 'the charges that form the subject matter of the new notice are not the charges that form the subject matter of the previous notice'. Per Eyewitness News his attorney Rishaad Moosa was cross-examined by the State, which put to him that he had helped Sibiya write to the National Prosecuting Authority about the investigation before the arrest; his other attorney answered that 'the witness has clearly said he wrote to the NPA to avoid a spectacle. Not to run away from arrest and the law.' This archive records the charges and the court dates and nothing about the complainants. A charge is an allegation. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process and decides nothing about any criminal charge and nothing about anything alleged at this commission. Sibiya denies the charges and the allegations, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya's SAPS disciplinary hearing is set down for Monday 5 October, to sit in the correctional centre if he is still in custody
The date that was 'the earliest possible' on Tuesday is now a date. Per Jacaranda FM and Scrolla.Africa, the South African Police Service confirmed on Wednesday 30 September 2026, through national spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, that the expedited internal disciplinary hearing of suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya will start on Monday 5 October 2026. Per Jacaranda FM it will be chaired by the Limpopo provincial commissioner, Jan Scheepers, and the venue turns on the bail outcome: 'If he is still in custody, we will then organise with Correctional Services to allow that particular hearing to sit down in Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Centre on the 5th of October.' Per Scrolla.Africa the process runs under the SAPS regulation reserved for serious corruption allegations, and the allegations are those made about him at this commission. His bail application in the Randburg Magistrate's Court, part-heard since Tuesday, resumes on Thursday 1 October. A disciplinary hearing is an employer's process. It decides nothing about any criminal charge, it is not a finding on anything alleged at this commission, Sibiya denies the allegations and the charges, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe commission stops sitting in public until 9 November: no sitting on 2 October, then two weeks in camera
The Madlanga Commission issued a media statement on Wednesday 30 September 2026 setting out the rest of its year, and it means the public record of this inquiry now goes quiet for nearly six weeks. Per Voice of the Cape, the commission does not sit at all on Friday 2 October. From the week of 5 October it sits in camera for two weeks, in the words of its spokesperson Jeremy Michaels to hear 'evidence which is not suitable for airing publicly due to ongoing investigations and/or the confidential nature of the material'. Public hearings resume on Monday 9 November, after the local government elections of 4 November. The same statement sets out what remains: the balance of Phase Two, including the evidence of Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, then Phase Three opening with Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi returning to the stand, then drafting through December and January, with the commission's report due to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 25 January 2027. Two things follow. The 2 October date that has been reported for weeks as the close of public evidence is not a close but a recess. And the evidence leaders' application to hear Major-General Feroz Khan's evidence in camera, and the 6 October date attached to it, now sit inside a fortnight that will not be broadcast. Wednesday 30 September was therefore the last public evidence heard by this commission until November.
OpenThe commission closes its hotline to new submissions and sets a two-day seminar to start drafting the report
The commission's scheduling statement of 30 September 2026, now published on its own record, carries two things that the coverage of the recess did not lead with. The first is that the public can no longer bring it anything new: in the words of the statement, the commission 'will not be accepting any new submissions via its hotline and various other platforms, although the Commission will continue to accept information which can assist in matters which are already receiving the attention of the evidence leaders and investigators'. For an inquiry that has run on tip-offs since September 2025, that is the door closing on the intake. The second is that the drafting has started: the statement says the commission will hold a two-day seminar during October 'in preparation for the drafting of its final report', alongside the two weeks of in camera hearings from 5 October. The same statement, issued by spokesperson Jeremy Michaels, confirms there is no sitting on 2 October, that public hearings resume on 9 November 2026, and that the report is due to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 25 January 2027. This is the commission's own scheduling announcement and it makes no finding about anybody.
OpenMatlala's evidence is pushed to 14 December, the 1 October sitting falls away, and the chairperson calls the late subpoena unacceptable
The commission's last scheduled public sitting before the recess did not happen. Per SABC News, The Citizen and IOL, the evidence of Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, who was to appear on Thursday 1 October 2026, was postponed to Monday 14 December 2026, and with it Thursday's sitting was cancelled. The reason given is the date on the subpoena. Matlala was served on 25 September 2026, five days before he was due in the box, and could not secure legal representation in time. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga put the blame on the commission's own side rather than on the witness, telling chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC: 'I know, Chaskalson, that you are standing in and that it's not your matter, but it is unacceptable that Mr Matlala was only subpoenaed on the 25th.' Per IOL and SABC News, Chaskalson said Matlala could be brought back sooner if a window opens in his criminal trial and he can be given enough notice. Matlala has already given evidence to this commission under subpoena on four days. He is an accused in a pending criminal matter, the allegations made about him at this commission are untested, he denies them, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenMADLANGA: SCHEDULE, 30 September 2026
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenDay 181
Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni. The last public sitting of the commission's evidence before it goes behind closed doors, and it turned from a quarry to a bus company. Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni returned for a second day of cross-examination and chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC put a sequence to him rather than a single allegation: that he told the President of the country his people would be behind any interference with Putco, that Putco was then interfered with on a scale the company counted, that its depots were burned, and that a body he chairs offered to buy it. Per Sowetan and TimesLIVE the commission heard that Putco recorded more than 350 incidents between October 2024 and January 2025 in which taxi operators blocked its buses from working around KwaNdebele. Per The Citizen and IOL the commission played footage of a January 2024 African National Congress campaign event at which Sibanyoni told President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister Gwede Mantashe, in support of a demand that local operators get 30 percent of Putco's Mpumalanga routes, 'when you find someone wanting to interfere with the Putco business, you must know it is us. Don't put red tapes.' Per Sowetan and Inside Politics the commission then took him through the night of 27 January 2025, when armed men took Putco's depots and burned roughly 51 buses, 16 of them at the Moloto depot in under ten minutes on closed circuit footage; through a message he sent about acquiring buses some 36 hours later; and through the unsolicited offer that Taxi Choice, the business arm of the South African National Taxi Council which he chairs, made to buy Putco on 25 February 2025. Per Eyewitness News and Inside Politics he rejected the whole construction: 'I differ. I differ 100% with your findings.' He said the taxis in the commission's video carried Mpumalanga plates and were not his association's, that his approach to the President concerned 'legitimate public and community matters', and that Taxi Choice's interest in Putco long predated any of it. When he suggested the questioning about Putco had become personal, per SABC News the chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused the suggestion and said there was nothing wrong with the evidence leader or the commission's investigators consulting Putco. Nothing on this page is a finding. No one has been charged over the depot fires on this record, Sibanyoni denies any involvement in them, his evidence and every allegation put to him are untested, and he and everyone named are presumed innocent.
OpenSibiya's bail application is part-heard and postponed to 1 October; he stays at Kgosi Mampuru II
Suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya made his formal bail application in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 29 September 2026, and the matter did not finish. Per SABC News and Sunday World the court postponed it to Thursday 1 October 2026 so the state could read documents handed over that morning and prepare to cross-examine the defence's first witness. Per SABC News the National Prosecuting Authority's Kaizer Kganyago put the reason plainly: 'The reason why we asked for a postponement is because we were given the documents this morning and we have to read those documents.' Sibiya remains in custody at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre. He is asking for bail of R20,000 and, per SABC News and the Mail and Guardian, denies all five charges and says he will plead not guilty; his attorney Estelle Kilian told the court the case is trumped up and aimed at removing him from the police service. This archive continues to publish the charges and the court dates in this matter and deliberately nothing more. One of the two complainants was a minor at the time of the alleged conduct, and the particulars are not ours to circulate. The charges do not arise from what this commission is investigating. Nothing has been tried, he has not pleaded, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenSAPS serves Shadrack Sibiya with a disciplinary notice in the court holding cells, over the allegations made at this commission
While suspended deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya was at the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 29 September 2026 for his bail application, the South African Police Service served him with notice of an internal disciplinary hearing. Per Briefly the SAPS national spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, confirmed at a media briefing outside the court that a senior presiding officer handed him the notice in the holding cells, and that the five day notice period required by SAPS regulations makes Monday 5 October 2026 the earliest date the hearing can start. Per Briefly the venue is undecided and turns on the bail outcome: if he is still in custody it would sit at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria, and if he is released it would be communicated separately. The two outlets do not describe the charge sheet the same way. Per Sowetan the disciplinary process concerns the allegations made about him at this commission, including an improper relationship with alleged underworld figures and the gifts of twenty impalas and money attributed to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala; Briefly ties the notice to the criminal charges he is facing. This archive records both characterisations rather than choosing between them. Per Sowetan, Sibiya told the court that being held in custody would deprive him of his right to an audi alteram partem hearing and prevent him preparing. A disciplinary notice is an employer's process, not a court's. It decides nothing about any criminal charge, it is not a finding on anything alleged at this commission, Sibiya denies the allegations, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenDay 180
Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni. A day after the commission read Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's WhatsApp messages into a public record he was not in the room to answer, the man on the other end of most of them came back to the witness box to answer them for himself. Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni, president of the South African Local and Long Distance Taxi and Bus Organisation, resumed a cross-examination that had had no date since 21 September, and chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC put the alleged extortion of Dr Tengane Thomas Ntuli to him directly. His answer was that there was a business, not a racket: per The Citizen he told the commission he put R900,000 into a joint arrangement with Ntuli, whose company held mining rights to a quarry but could not meet the 30 percent local content requirement on the R572 Moloto road upgrade, and that the profit split the evidence leaders read as protection money was his 40 percent share, 'he gets 60% because you are directly involved running the quarry, give me 40%'. Per IOL and the African News Agency he went further and separated himself from his co-accused on the threatening message, telling Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC that Sindane had been acting on his own and saying 'Ntuli and I had a good relationship, I never sent him any threatening message.' He was also asked why he had helped pay the legal bills of Calvin Gwabo Mahlangu, convicted over a taxi killing; per IOL and Eyewitness News his answer was family rather than crime, 'his family approached me ... his mother approached me to help'. He said he did not know how Sindane came to hold a confidential police docket on the alleged Kwaggafontein 20 grouping, whose papers name a man he has identified as his nephew, and Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC told him she found that unbelievable. He objected to being cross-examined at all on facts that are also the charges he faces in Delmas. Nothing on this page is a finding. Sibanyoni's evidence is untested, so is everything alleged against him, he denies the criminal charges, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent. He is part-heard and returns on 30 September 2026.
OpenSindane's court bid to keep his WhatsApps out is struck off with punitive costs, and the messages are read into the record without him
The urgent application Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane filed on the night of 22 September, hours before he was due in the witness box, was called on Monday 28 September 2026 and failed. Per News24 and SNL24 the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria struck it from the roll, and per News24 and The Citizen it did so with punitive costs. Sowetan places the court in Johannesburg; this archive records the disagreement rather than choosing. The application had asked that the subpoena compelling his testimony be set aside and that the commission be barred from using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone. Per News24 his case was that the Hawks had seized the device for a pending extortion and money laundering matter, that the warrant could not be repurposed without permission, and that the phone held 'deeply private information which had nothing to do with any investigation by the commission or with the charges I face'. With the last obstacle gone and the commission's own 25 September ruling already ordering that his evidence be led 'in whatever format', chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC led the documentary evidence in his absence on the same day. Per Sowetan he characterised the exchanges as 'an extortion racket enforced with threats of violence', and per TimesLIVE and Sowetan the evidence put a monthly demand of R100,000 from July 2021 on a businessman, Dr Tengane Thomas Ntuli, who held a South African National Roads Agency contract to upgrade the Moloto road, together with a message attributed to Sindane after a missed payment: 'I demand a response, within 48 hours, detailing why the operation should not be stopped.' A costs order and a body of untested documentary evidence are not findings of guilt. Sindane has given no evidence to this commission, has not answered any of this, denies the criminal charges he faces with three co-accused, and is presumed innocent.
OpenCriminal charges ordered against Feroz Khan after a second no-show: 'a flagrant disregard of a subpoena'
Dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, the former deputy head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, was under subpoena to give evidence on Monday 28 September 2026 and did not appear. The date was not a first attempt: it had already been set by the chairperson on 1 September, after Khan failed to attend that day, on conditions he was required to meet. Per Eyewitness News and SABC News his legal team filed late on Sunday for roughly another month, arguing from psychological reports that he should testify virtually from a familiar setting, in the words of his representative Mr Vally, 'so that there's no triggers'. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused it. Per the Daily Maverick, Business Day, SABC News and The Citizen he held that 'his non-appearance today is a flagrant disregard of a subpoena by this commission', and per The Citizen put the principle to Khan's representative directly: 'If we accept this, Mr Vally, then what is the point of a subpoena? It becomes a meaningless piece of paper.' Per TimesLIVE evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC had asked that the non-attendance be referred to the National Prosecuting Authority for determination. The chairperson then directed the commission's secretary, Dr Nolitha Vukuza, to take the steps needed to lay criminal charges against Khan for failing to attend. Per Business Day the offence sits in the Commissions Act: a person summoned who fails to attend without sufficient cause is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine of up to R1,093 or imprisonment of up to six months, or both. Read what this is. It is a finding about attendance and a referral to a prosecutor. It is not a charge, it is not a conviction, and it decides nothing about the untested allegations Khan has still never answered from the witness box. Per Eyewitness News and the Daily Maverick part of his evidence may yet be heard on 6 October 2026 if the evidence leaders' pending application to hear the WhatsApp portion in camera succeeds. He is presumed innocent.
OpenDay 179
The heaviest day left on the calendar arrived and neither of the two men it was set down for was in the room. Dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, the former deputy head of SAPS Crime Intelligence, was under a subpoena that the 1 September ruling had already moved once to this date, and he did not appear; his legal representative, Mr Vally, applied on Sunday night for another month, arguing from psychological reports that his client should testify virtually from a familiar environment so that there are no triggers. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused it and went further. Per the Daily Maverick, Business Day, SABC News and The Citizen he held that 'his non-appearance today is a flagrant disregard of a subpoena by this commission' and directed the commission's secretary, Dr Nolitha Vukuza, to lay criminal charges against Khan for failing to attend, after evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC submitted that the non-attendance was in defiance of the subpoena and should go to the National Prosecuting Authority. Per Business Day the Commissions Act makes it an offence for a person summoned to fail to attend without sufficient cause, carrying a fine of up to R1,093 or up to six months' imprisonment, or both. Part of Khan's evidence may still be heard on 6 October if the evidence leaders' pending in camera application succeeds. The afternoon went to the other absent man. Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane lost his urgent bid in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to stop the commission using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone: per News24 it was struck from the roll with punitive costs. Chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC then did what the 25 September ruling permitted and led the messages into the record without him, putting up exchanges the evidence leaders read as what Chaskalson called an extortion racket enforced with threats of violence: a monthly R100,000 demanded from a businessman holding a Sanral contract on the Moloto road, legal fees funded for men convicted in taxi killings, and messages about Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala forwarded around after his arrest. Nothing on this page is a finding. Neither man has given evidence, both deny the criminal charges they face, no court has convicted either of them, and both are presumed innocent.
OpenThe evidence leaders ask for Feroz Khan's WhatsApp evidence to be heard behind closed doors
Three days before dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan is due to answer for himself, the commission's own evidence leaders have applied to close part of the room. Per IOL, Eyewitness News and the African News Agency they have asked the chairperson to rule that certain WhatsApp communications involving Khan, and the documents that go with them, be led in camera: the public and the media excluded, but Khan's legal representatives present and able to take instructions from their client. Per IOL the application also asks that the transcripts, recordings and documents of that portion stay confidential. The stated concern is not embarrassment but exposure. Per Eyewitness News the application warns that the information 'may risk ongoing sensitive investigations', and per the reporting it covers material that could identify informants and live inquiries into organised crime. The media have been given 72 hours to oppose. Note what this is and is not. It is a request, not yet a decision: the chairperson has not ruled. It is also a reversal of the direction of the earlier fight - in July it was Khan's own legal team that wanted parts of his evidence heard in camera and the commission that refused, and it is now the evidence leaders asking. Khan's evidence is set down for Monday 28 September 2026 at 09:30 under the 1 September ruling. He has not yet testified, the allegations against him are untested, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe ruling lands in writing: Sindane's postponement is refused, and his evidence is led on Monday 'in whatever format'
The decision the chairperson reserved on Day 178 was circulated on Friday 25 September 2026, and it went against the witness. Per SABC News the commission dismissed Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's application to postpone his testimony, and per IOL and the African News Agency the operative wording gives the commission room to proceed with or without him: 'The evidence of or concerning Oupa Jossiah Sindane must be led on Monday in whatever format.' That is close to what chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC had asked for on Wednesday - the day used rather than lost, the documentary evidence flighted, the question of what is finally admitted left open. Per Briefly the panel, the chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga and Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC, pressed on the point that the period of sacred spiritual seclusion advanced from the bar did not appear in the founding affidavit at all. No outlet has published the commission's full reasons, and this archive has not seen the statement itself; what is reported is the outcome and the order. Three things this ruling does not do. It does not decide anything alleged against Sindane, who has still given no evidence to this commission. It does not dispose of his urgent High Court application in Pretoria to set aside the subpoena and stop the commission using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone, which is set down for 6 October 2026 and which a judge, not the commission, will decide. And it does not convict him of anything: he denies the criminal charges he faces and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe chamber is dark until Monday, and the Sindane ruling will arrive in writing
The commission's week ends without another sitting. After Wednesday's argument on whether Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane's evidence should be postponed, the chairperson, Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, reserved his decision, and per Eyewitness News he told the chamber how it would be delivered: 'Thank you. But as I understand it, we are not going to sit on Friday. So the ruling will be circulated.' Per SABC News the ruling is due on Friday 25 September 2026. A ruling that is circulated rather than read out is still a ruling, but it means there is no sitting at which to hear it, and the next public hearing is on Monday 28 September. That Monday carries three things at once: it is the date the commission set in its 1 September ruling for the evidence of dismissed Major-General Feroz Khan, at 09:30; it is the date Sindane's own medical certificate anticipates for his return, the date chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC used when he framed his fallback; and it is now the first day on which the effect of Friday's ruling can be seen in the chamber. Nothing here is a finding. A ruling on a postponement decides when a man is heard, not whether anything alleged against him is true, and Sindane, who has answered none of the allegations put to the commission, is presumed innocent.
OpenDay 178
The commission sat to hear a witness who was not in the room. Taxi owner Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane, known in the industry as 'King of the Sky' and Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni's co-accused in the Delmas extortion matter, was under subpoena to give evidence at 9:30am. His legal team asked instead for a postponement on three grounds: a medical certificate, with his counsel Advocate Thabani Masuku telling the panel he has uncontrolled hypertension and is unfit to follow the proceedings; a period of spiritual seclusion described as inseparable from his identity; and an urgent High Court application filed the night before in Pretoria to interdict the subpoena and stop the commission using WhatsApp messages taken off his phone, set down for 6 October. Chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC did not dispute the medical certificate, which anticipates a return on 28 September, but opposed the rest: he called the timing of the court application self-created urgency, said pending court proceedings are not a basis for a postponement, and asked to lead documentary evidence in Sindane's absence so the day would not be lost. Masuku objected that putting private communications up provisionally is still publication, and that a man in bed cannot answer them. Per SABC News the chairperson reserved his ruling to Friday 25 September, and it went against Sindane: the ruling circulated that day dismissed the postponement and ordered, per IOL and the African News Agency, that 'the evidence of or concerning Oupa Jossiah Sindane must be led on Monday in whatever format'. Nothing about the underlying allegations was decided. Sindane has given no evidence to this commission, he denies the criminal charges, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe cross-examination falls away a second time, and Sibanyoni's co-accused is called for Wednesday
The commission did not sit on Tuesday 22 September 2026. The continued questioning of taxi owner Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni, part-heard since Day 169 on 28 August, had been set down for Monday 21 September and did not happen then either; it has now been postponed a second time, to a date still to be determined. The reason on the record is his counsel's diary. Per Sowetan and the African News Agency, Advocate Mpati Qofa told the chairperson he was unavailable from Tuesday and through the following week because his team was booked at the Khampepe Commission: 'We were booked as far as February for the Khampepe commission.' Per Eyewitness News the commission resumes on Wednesday with a witness linked to Sibanyoni. That witness is Bafana Sindane, the taxi owner known in the industry as 'King of the Sky', served with a Rule 10.6 notice requiring him to answer questions about alleged criminal syndicates and associations in the transport sector, and Sibanyoni's co-accused in the Delmas extortion matter. Qofa acts for both men and undertook to file a postponement application for Sindane as well. Per Sowetan and the African News Agency the chairperson, Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, set the terms: 'The application must be filed by midnight on Monday... Sindane must also be present on Wednesday because you never know whether the application could be granted or not.' Nothing about the allegations themselves was decided. Sindane, Sibanyoni, Mvimbi Daniel Masilela and Philemon Msiza are accused of extorting more than R2 million in protection fees from a mining businessman in Mpumalanga's Nkangala district between 2022 and 2025, and Sindane faces money laundering charges linked to the alleged proceeds. They deny the charges, no court has convicted any of them, and all are presumed innocent. A postponement is a scheduling decision and says nothing about the merits in either direction.
OpenShadrack Sibiya appears in the Randburg court on five charges, arrested by the task team set up on this commission's recommendations
Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, the suspended Deputy National Commissioner of Police for Crime Detection and a witness who gave evidence before this commission across Days 62 to 66, appeared in the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 22 September 2026. Per The Citizen and the Daily Maverick he had been arrested the day before by the Commission's Recommendations Task Team, the unit established to act on this commission's recommendations. Per IOL, the Daily Maverick and TimesLIVE he faces five charges said to arise from alleged incidents between 16 May and 3 August 2026: rape, trafficking in persons, promoting the sexual grooming of a child, and two counts of the sexual grooming of a child. Per The Citizen his formal bail application was postponed to 29 September 2026 and he is held at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria meanwhile. This archive is publishing the charges and the court dates and nothing further: the complainants include a minor, and their identities and the particulars alleged against them are not ours to circulate. Read the rest with care. These charges do not arise from the matters this commission is investigating; they are a separate criminal case that happens to have been brought by a team born of this one. Per the National Prosecuting Authority's Kaizer Kganyago, Sibiya has not pleaded, because 'the matter had not yet reached that stage'. Nothing has been tested, no court has convicted him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenMasemola's charges are formally withdrawn in court, a week before the date the matter was set down for
The withdrawal the National Prosecuting Authority announced on 15 September 2026 was carried out in open court on Tuesday 22 September 2026, and it came a week early: the matter against suspended National Commissioner of Police Lieutenant-General Fannie Masemola had been postponed to 29 September. Per Eyewitness News, The Citizen and the Mail and Guardian the four counts under the Public Finance Management Act, brought over a roughly R360 million SAPS health-services tender awarded to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala's Medicare24, were formally withdrawn in the Pretoria Magistrate's Court after the NPA found no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution. Speaking outside court, per Eyewitness News, Masemola said: 'It has been a very difficult moment in life... It has been a tough journey.' Two things do not follow from it. A withdrawal is not an acquittal and makes no finding either way, in his favour or against him; it ends the prosecution. And it does not put him back at his desk: his precautionary suspension, imposed by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 23 April 2026, is a separate matter, and per TimesLIVE any decision on a return rests with the President. The NPA has said it will examine how the case was assessed, enrolled and handled, and per the Mail and Guardian that scrutiny extends to the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption.
OpenPolice search Mchunu's KwaZulu-Natal home and seize his phone, the second time his devices have been taken
On Monday 21 September 2026 police executed a search and seizure warrant at the private KwaZulu-Natal family home of Senzo Mchunu, the Minister of Police on special leave, and took a cellphone. Per Business Day, Eyewitness News and IOL the warrant was issued by the High Court in Johannesburg and identified the devices it wanted by their IMEI numbers, and the minister, with his attorney present, handed the phone over without incident. Per his spokesperson Sthembiso Mshengu it was not the first time: 'It must be noted that this is the second time police have seized these communication tools without having returned the first set.' The outlets do not agree on what the search is for, and this archive is not going to reconcile them. Per Business Day the raid was carried out alongside a search of Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya's Centurion home and is connected to the investigation that produced the charges Sibiya appeared on the next day; per Eyewitness News and the reporting around it, police have described an investigation into defeating the ends of justice and fraud, in cases opened in 2025 at the Durban Central police station. Both attributions are given as the outlets gave them. A search warrant is an investigative step authorised by a judge on an untested case. It charges nobody, decides nothing, and makes no finding. Mchunu has answered the allegations before this commission, denies wrongdoing, and is presumed innocent. Per IOL he has said he will address the raids publicly in the coming week.
OpenDay 177
Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni. Taxi owner Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni returned to the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College under heavy security for the cross-examination set down three weeks ago, and it did not happen. The day went instead to his supplementary statement, and to his objections. He told the commission the material taken off his cellphone in the Kwaggafontein criminal case should not be used here, calling its appearance before the commission an abuse and a violation of his privacy and constitutional rights; he complained that the commission had drip-fed him evidence, sending more than 2,000 pages on 4 September, eighteen days after his own statement was due; and he said questions about the Moloto Road and Evergreen bus contracts and the Kwagga 20 proceedings fall outside the commission's mandate. On the substance he denied any improper relationship with the police, saying of the officers whose access codes were found for his Centurion estate that he had never associated with them for any improper motive or purpose, and he defended his dealings with the security company Gubis85 Solutions, which he said was paid R145,000 a month including VAT to protect his taxi association from March 2024 and which gave him a bakkie worth about R1 million as a gift. Cross-examination was postponed to a date not yet determined. Every allegation touching him remains untested and he is presumed innocent.
OpenRamaphosa grants a final extension: the commission's report is now due on 25 January 2027
On Saturday 19 September 2026 President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the deadline for the Madlanga Commission's final report from 16 November 2026 to Monday 25 January 2027. Per the Presidency's statement, issued by presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, 'President Cyril Ramaphosa has extended - to Monday, 25 January 2027 - the deadline for the submission of the final report', and the new date 'allows the Commission to process additional evidence, including the testimony of various experts who have made recommendations relating to the Commission's terms of reference'. The Presidency describes it as the final extension. Per SAnews and The Witness it is the third move of the date: the commission was originally to report by 31 August 2026, that was extended on 9 July 2026 to 16 November 2026 with an evidence deadline of 2 October 2026, and it now runs to 25 January 2027. Two interim reports have already gone to the President, in December 2025 and May 2026. No announcement has been made about whether the 2 October 2026 close of public evidence moves with it, and the commission's own chief evidence leader was still telling the chamber four days later that 'our programme is tight... We won't finish. And we do need to finish.' An extension is an administrative decision by the appointing authority. It decides nothing about any allegation before the commission and makes no finding against anybody.
OpenDay 176
Witness: Professor Somadoda Fikeni. The commission stepped back from the individual cases to the machinery that is supposed to keep the state honest. Its witness was Professor Somadoda Fikeni, chairperson of the Public Service Commission, the Chapter 10 body that monitors and investigates public administration, who gave evidence at the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria two days after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a new Public Service Commission Act into law. His theme was implementation. 'South Africa is a cemetery of best policies in the world, but they are not implemented,' he told the commission, per IOL, and he described what he called a political economy of inefficiency, in which the unwillingness to implement is dressed up as a facade of wanting to. He said vetting in South Africa is often not taken seriously and falls short of the standards applied elsewhere, supported the call made the day before by the head of Correctional Services for frontline officials across the criminal justice system to be vetted, and argued that in the most unequal society in the world, officials at the lower levels are more vulnerable to being enticed, so their conditions of service and their legal protection against political interference matter. It was evidence about systems, not about any individual, and nothing in it is an allegation against a named person.
OpenA year of hearings: the commission reports 110 witnesses over 174 days, and its chair says the evidence shows indications of serious criminality
The Madlanga Commission marked one year since its first public hearing on 17 September 2025 with two statements. Spokesperson Jeremy Michaels reported 110 witnesses over 174 days of hearings to 16 September 2026, among them 36 SAPS officers, 25 Hawks officers, seven IDAC and NPA officials, five IPID officials, two Members of Parliament and one Cabinet Minister; 26,352 pages of oral testimony transcripts and 105,282 pages of documentary evidence in 750 bundles; nineteen in-camera applications granted; and three High Court applications, one dismissed and two withdrawn. Opening Day 175, chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga said the commission is yet to assess all the evidence and make definitive determinations in its final report, but that 'what is emerging from the evidence is that there are indications of serious criminality within the criminal justice system', and that this apparent criminality suggests the system 'has been populated by malleable, corrupt state functionaries'. Per TimesLIVE and IOL. It is an observation on trends in the evidence, not a finding against any person. The final report was at that point due to the President on 16 November 2026; on 19 September 2026 the Presidency extended that deadline to 25 January 2027.
OpenMadlanga Commission reports demonstrable progress as it marks one year of inquiry
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenStatement by the Chairperson, Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, on one year of hearings
An official statement added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenDay 175
Witness: Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale. A year to the day after Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi took the stand as its first witness, the commission paused to take stock and then went somewhere it had not yet gone in earnest: the prisons. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga read a short statement saying that, while definitive findings wait for the final report, the evidence so far shows indications of serious criminality inside the criminal justice system. Then the National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale, described prison gangs that groom officials with small favours, organise escapes and reach witnesses beyond the walls, told the commission that Thabo Bester had repeatedly tried to see him alone, and relayed an inmate's account that officers told him to escape from Rooigrond Maximum Correctional Centre this month or be killed, so that he would stop naming them in court.
OpenCachalia says he is relieved the Masemola charges are gone, and points the question of the police chief's return at the President
The day after the National Prosecuting Authority withdrew every charge against suspended national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola, the acting Police Minister made clear where he stands and where the next decision sits. Per IOL, East Coast Radio, The Witness and Joburg ETC, Professor Firoz Cachalia told a media briefing: 'I am very happy for Masemola and very relieved. I always thought that it was unjust to join him in a criminal prosecution.' On whether Masemola returns to his post, Cachalia did not announce anything and was careful to say it is not his call: the appointment of a national commissioner is the President's, and per IOL he said 'the president and National Commissioner General Masemola will probably meet shortly' and that the President would engage with him about the way forward. Two things follow from that and it is worth keeping them apart. The withdrawal of the charges is a completed fact: the NDPP, Advocate Andy Mothibi, instructed it after finding no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution on the four Public Finance Management Act counts arising from the SAPS health-services tender awarded to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala's Medicare24, a tender budgeted at around R360 million and awarded at about R228 million. The suspension is a separate decision, taken by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 23 April 2026, and it had not been lifted at the time of publication. The formal step of withdrawing the charges in open court still has to happen; per Joburg ETC the prosecution team will arrange for Masemola to appear for it, and per Daily Maverick the matter was transferred to the Pretoria Regional Court and stands postponed to 29 September 2026. A withdrawal is not an acquittal and makes no finding on the underlying conduct in either direction. Masemola has consistently denied wrongdoing and is presumed innocent.
OpenRamaphosa signs a new Public Service Commission Act, making obstruction of the public service watchdog a crime
Two days before the chairperson of the Public Service Commission gave evidence to the Madlanga Commission, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Public Service Commission Bill into law. Per the Presidency, the new Act repeals the 1997 Act, extends the PSC's mandate to local government and public entities, empowers it to direct the relevant authorities to report on how its decisions have been implemented, and makes obstructing the Commission an offence punishable by up to 12 months' imprisonment, a fine of up to R50,000, or both. Per SABC News, PSC chairperson Professor Somadoda Fikeni told the Madlanga Commission on 18 September that the Act was a milestone nearly 19 years in the making.
OpenDay 174
Witness: Laura Pop. After a day inside one metro police department, the commission went up a level and asked a question it will have to answer in its report: once you accept that a criminal justice system has been infiltrated, what do you actually do about it? Its witness was Laura Pop, a senior financial sector specialist at the World Bank who has worked on anti-corruption and asset recovery in more than twenty countries, including South Africa, and who works alongside the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Her evidence, given at the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria, was that the ordinary tools are not enough. Per TimesLIVE: 'Criminal investigations or disciplinary investigations use some of the bodies that are already there, and what happens is that some countries have seen that these measures are not sufficient.' Two reasons, both of which this commission has watched happen. The first is capture of the remedy itself: 'The bodies tasked with conducting the disciplinary hearings could themselves become captured, or their approach and practice might not be a match for the challenge.' The second is time: 'It can take years to have a criminal case against a single corrupt criminal justice officer adjudicated.' Pop took the panel through what four countries did instead, per SABC News: judicial vetting in Kenya, pre-vetting in Moldova, hybrid assessment bodies combining civil society and international experts in Ukraine, and the stricter Albanian model. Moldova's numbers were the ones she dwelt on. Of the candidates put through the pre-vetting of the country's judicial self-governance bodies, an assessment of financial integrity, tax compliance and ethical conduct, '38% of the candidates passed', which she called the lowest passing rate of her examples, adding that 'the consequences for this vetting were not particularly serious when compared to the Albanian case'. Her recommendation for South Africa, per Eyewitness News, TimesLIVE and Inside Politics, was a once-off legally entrenched integrity evaluation of senior and high-risk officials across the criminal justice system, described in the reporting as a deep cleaning exercise, that would have to be independent, tightly defined and hedged with strong legal safeguards. Most of her afternoon went to the plumbing that makes such an exercise work: financial disclosure that can be verified rather than merely filed. Per Eyewitness News she told the commission the evaluating body 'must have the power to compel the production of financial and other necessary records from third-party repositories without relying on the evaluated individual to produce them voluntarily', and that verification must be able to extend to the assets and income of family members and third parties within the limits required to establish unjustified wealth. Her worked example was the loan that never gets checked: 'Because sometimes the people who gave the loans are not subject to asset declarations. They weren't included in the asset declaration of the official; they're just as the source. So the commission needs to be able to go to the tax authority or, you know, to get records to see if this person could even afford to provide this loan.' She recommended working with the South African Revenue Service, and said that anyone refusing an assessment should face dismissal. Per SABC News her blunt line on training was: 'You can't train people who don't have integrity.' This was expert evidence about systems, not testimony about any individual, and it makes no allegation against anyone.
OpenThe NPA withdraws every charge against Fannie Masemola, and says it will now investigate how the case was brought
The prosecution of the country's suspended national police commissioner is over. On Tuesday 15 September 2026 the National Prosecuting Authority announced that National Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Andy Mothibi had issued a formal instruction that all charges against General Fannie Masemola be withdrawn. Per SABC News, the NDPP found there were no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution after considering the investigation, the report of the case assessment panel, and an independent senior counsel's opinion, and took the decision under his constitutional and statutory power to intervene where NPA policy directives have not been properly applied. Per Eyewitness News, the NPA said the review had revealed no reasonable prospects of success and that Masemola will still have to appear in court for the formal withdrawal. The sting is in the last line of the announcement: per SABC News the matter will be reported for further scrutiny to determine whether there was any misconduct in the assessment, enrolment and handling of the case. Masemola was charged in April 2026 by the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption with four counts of contravening the Public Finance Management Act over the SAPS health-services tender awarded to Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala's Medicare24. Unlike his co-accused he faced no fraud, corruption or money-laundering counts; the allegation was that he failed to prevent the tender and failed to act swiftly against the officers involved. President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended him on 23 April 2026 on the strength of the charges. This commission is part of the reason they have fallen away. In July 2026 it took former IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson through the legal basis for the Masemola charges, and on 30 July the Sowetan reported her conceding that the decision was not based on any law; on Day 154 IDAC state advocate Drushantha Ramsamy testified that Johnson had instructed the team to keep Masemola ignorant of investigations so that he would give Parliament a false account and could then be charged with perjury. Those allegations are untested and Johnson is presumed innocent. A withdrawal is not an acquittal and makes no finding on the underlying conduct either way; it ends the prosecution. Masemola's suspension is the President's decision and had not been lifted at the time of publication.
OpenDay 173
Witnesses: Superintendent Elmarie de Beer, Sergeant Rico van Wyk. The commission came back from its recess a day later than planned, and it came back on a police service it had barely touched. For the first time the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department was the subject rather than a bit part, and evidence leader Advocate Thabang Pooe ran two witnesses from inside the department. In the morning Superintendent Elmarie de Beer, head of the JMPD's internal affairs unit, described what her investigators keep running into: officers who use unofficial informants to find businesses moving large amounts of cash or precious metals, and then intercept the cash or the goods. Per Eyewitness News she put the reach of it plainly - 'So the conduct is not confined to JMPD based on the cases. It typically involved collaboration between JMPD officers, SAPS members, Hawks members, and the ultimate buyer and the sellers.' She named Superintendent Phineas Manyama of the Tactical Response Unit, a decorated officer on the department's own account, as someone who used departmental resources for his own benefit and kept crime patrols out of parts of the city: 'There are certain areas where TRU members, as soon as they go into those areas, especially where the crime hotspots or the syndicates operate, as soon as JMPD TRU members enter the parameters of that specific area, they are being phoned and told, What are you doing there? Get out.' Manyama retired in April 2026, as her unit was preparing disciplinary charges against him. De Beer also told the panel her own investigators are targeted and threatened, and that the officers they charge turn around and file grievances against them. In the afternoon the register narrowed to one man. Sergeant Rico van Wyk of the JMPD K9 unit played the commission CCTV footage of the kidnapping of a child in Johannesburg in 2021, for which he said R5 million was extorted from the child's father, and told the panel he recognised two of the men on his own shift: 'Upon viewing the video, I identified two of the individuals depicted therein as Officers Johannes Mokgatle and Zwelibanzi Mgujulwa.' He said neither man denied being in the video, and neither explained it. Mokgatle is the warrant officer the commission has already heard was linked to murder-accused businessman Katiso 'KT' Molefe. Van Wyk also described a fleet-tracking employee, now dead, who told him there was no data on a vehicle he was trying to trace, and Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga supplied the other possibility: 'I wanted to say another possibility is that she did not tell you the truth.' Van Wyk answered, 'Possibility is there, Commissioner.' Nothing here is a finding. Every allegation is untested, Manyama, Mokgatle and Mgujulwa have not answered any of it on the public record, and all are presumed innocent.
OpenThe state closes its side of the Kekana arrest inquiry, and the defence puts the police tracking company on the stand
The trial-within-a-trial in the Matlala case has changed hands. It exists to decide whether what police say they found when they arrested accused Musa Kekana on 17 April 2024 can be used against him. On Friday 11 September 2026 the state's last witness on it, Sergeant Mayisela Ledwaba, was cross-examined. Per Y World, he testified that he drove Captain Phimi Sekgobela's white Golf 7 GTI that morning but could remember little of the journey beyond travelling on the N12, and the defence put it to the court that one of the two police officers was lying under oath. Per Eyewitness News, Ledwaba held to his version that 'permission was given by Kekana to search the yard and house' and that Kekana himself produced the keys. On Monday 14 September, per SABC News, the state provisionally closed its case in the trial-within-a-trial, and Kekana's defence called its first witness: Eric Deysel, a consultant at C-Track, the company that manages tracking on SAPS vehicles. His evidence is the automatic vehicle location data the defence handed the state on 8 September. Per SABC News he told the court: 'So, I managed to identify 10 vehicles that has reported at 8th road and I identified 16 vehicles that reported on 5th road. However, I would like to mention to the court that nine out of the 10 vehicles that was identified at 8th road, those nine vehicles also reported at 5th road.' Per Eyewitness News, the records he read put a VW Golf GTI at 8th Road from about 8.50am until just after noon, and again from about 12.20pm until 3.55pm, and he vouched for the data: 'in terms of a fully functional working device, such a device will always give accurate and correct data.' What the defence says those movements prove about the arrest has not yet been argued, and the court has ruled on nothing. A trial-within-a-trial decides only whether evidence is admissible. Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, Tsakane Matlala, Kekana, Tiego Floyd Mabusela and Nthabiseng Zandile Nzama have pleaded not guilty to 25 charges including attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and all are presumed innocent.
OpenRamaphosa sends the SIU after the R168 million North West bus tender tied to Suleiman Carrim and the late Jotham Msibi
The joint venture that surfaced on this commission's Day 161, out of the late taxi boss Jotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi's phone, is now the subject of a presidential proclamation. Per TimesLIVE, IOL, Business Day and News24, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a proclamation on Friday 11 September 2026, reported on 14 September, authorising the Special Investigating Unit to investigate transport tenders worth about R168 million awarded by the North West department of community safety and transport management to a joint venture between Transnat Coach Lines and Ziggy Investments, a company of which Suleiman Carrim is a director. The mandate reaches further than the tender itself. It covers the financial flows between the joint venture and Msibi, who died in January 2024, and the business rescue of North West Transport Investments, the state-owned operator that entered voluntary business rescue in July 2022, including the conduct of the practitioners appointed to run it. Per Business Day, it also lets the SIU pursue recovery where losses are established, which could end in assets being forfeited to the state. Freddy Sonakile, who chairs the North West legislature's portfolio committee, welcomed it, per Business Day: 'The proclamation provides the SIU with necessary statutory mandate to investigate allegations, follow the evidence and pursue appropriate recovery measures.' Per TimesLIVE he added: 'We will continue exercising rigorous oversight until there is accountability, consequence management, and every effort is made to recover public funds.' On 18 August 2026 evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC put the joint venture and its payments to the commission and said the connection had not previously been identified by investigators. By then the commission had already ruled that Carrim would not be recalled, and four days earlier it had resolved to lay criminal charges against him over his failure to appear. No response from Carrim to the proclamation was reported. An SIU proclamation authorises an investigation; it is not a finding that anything was irregular. Carrim is presumed innocent, and Msibi is dead and cannot answer anything said about him.
OpenLucas Legabe gets R50,000 bail after the magistrate finds no evidence tying him to disposing of the stolen cocaine
The first person charged over the theft of 541kg of cocaine from the Hawks' Port Shepstone offices is out of custody. On Monday 14 September 2026, the day the ruling had been reserved to, Magistrate Nonjabulo Moleele of the Port Shepstone Magistrate's Court granted Lucas Legabe, a 49-year-old Pretoria businessman, bail of R50,000. The state had opposed his release on two grounds: that he might flee, and that he would interfere with the two accomplices it says will testify against him as section 204 witnesses. The magistrate accepted neither. Per SABC News she said: 'I am satisfied that the applicant has discharged the onus resting upon him under Section 60(11)b of the Criminal Procedure Act.' Per Eyewitness News she found that Legabe has roots in the country through his family and businesses, and said: 'I am not persuaded that a likelihood of abscondment as opposed to a mere possibility has been established.' And per TimesLIVE and SABC News she weighed the size of the case against what the state had actually put up: 'The seriousness of the charge, the scale of the alleged enterprise are real and I'm not discounting that, but they are offset by the absence of any evidence connecting the applicant to the physical disposal of the drugs.' That sentence matters, because the state's case at the bail hearing was that its witnesses place Legabe inside the building and say he was given a share of the consignment to sell. The conditions, per The Citizen: he must live at the address he gave the court and get the investigating officer's approval to move, surrender his passports and apply for no new travel documents, report to Brooklyn Police Station in Pretoria every Monday, have no direct or indirect contact with state witnesses, and not interfere with the investigation. The case returns to court on 1 December 2026. Bail is not a verdict and says nothing about guilt either way. Legabe denies involvement and says he was tortured after his arrest to make him implicate police officers; no court has ruled on that allegation, no police officer has been charged over the theft, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe judge gave the state its time to read the tracking records, and a sergeant took the stand on how Kekana was arrested
The hundred pages of automatic vehicle location data the defence handed the state on the evening of 8 September 2026 did not end the state's case in the Matlala trial-within-a-trial. It delayed it. Per Eyewitness News, Judge Cassim Moosa ruled on Thursday 10 September that 'it was fair to give the prosecution an opportunity to peruse the documents that the defence had obtained last week', and senior state prosecutor Advocate Elize le Roux, who had been within sight of closing, used the time to study what she called the objective information in the tracking bundle rather than close. Advocate Nardus Grove, for accused two and five, objected again to the pace: 'With the greatest of respect, this trial is proceeding very slowly ... It is clear that this trial is not going to get even near the close of State's case in the days estimated by the State.' The state then kept leading evidence. Per the Mail and Guardian on 11 September, Sergeant Mayisela Ledwaba testified for the state about the arrest of accused Musa Kekana on 17 April 2024, the arrest the whole trial-within-a-trial exists to test. Kekana's case is that he was assaulted and suffocated by police that day and that the firearms and ammunition said to have been recovered afterwards cannot be used against him; the tracking records are the defence's attempt to show where the police vehicles actually were. Nothing has been decided. A trial-within-a-trial rules only on whether particular evidence is admissible, not on guilt. Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, Tsakane Matlala, Kekana, Tiego Floyd Mabusela and Nthabiseng Zandile Nzama pleaded not guilty in July 2026 to 25 charges including attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, fraud and money laundering, and all are presumed innocent.
OpenParliament's police committee misses its deadline again and gets until 30 October, and the chair blames his own members
Parliament's ad hoc committee investigating Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi's July 2025 allegations was due to hand its report to the National Assembly today, Friday 11 September 2026. It has not. Per SABC News, parliamentary spokesperson Moloto Mothapo confirmed that Speaker Thoko Didiza has granted a further extension: 'The Speaker has indeed agreed to requested extension, meaning the committee now is expected to conclude its work, to make sure the report is ready by 30 October, for report to be tabled before a sitting of the National Assembly for its consideration.' SABC News counts it as the sixth extension since the committee was established in 2025; the fifth ran to 12 June 2026. Chairperson Soviet Lekganyane confirmed at a virtual National Assembly session on 10 September that the request had already gone in, and gave two reasons for it. The first is volume: per TimesLIVE, hundreds of pages of the draft report are still unread, and Lekganyane said 'We have to do due diligence, and there is no way the remaining pages can be covered'. The second is his own members. Per Eyewitness News he told them 'let us also focus on the business of the committee because there are some unnecessary things that derail us in our meeting, where we end up not finishing the work that we must do because of our conduct and attitude', and attendance has been poor. MK Party MP David Skosana put it harder, per TimesLIVE: 'It is like we are moonlighting ... Like we are just here for the sake of completing the report. This committee is not being taken seriously.' The new date matters to this archive because it puts the two tracks within three weeks of each other. Parliament now reports on 30 October 2026; this commission's own final report was at that point due to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 16 November 2026, a deadline since extended to 25 January 2027. A committee report is a parliamentary conclusion on parliamentary evidence. It is not a finding of this commission and it is not a criminal verdict, and everyone named before either body is presumed innocent.
OpenThe defence hands the state a hundred pages of police vehicle tracking, and the Matlala trial stops to read them
The question in the Matlala trial-within-a-trial is where the police actually were on 17 April 2024, the day accused number one Musa Kekana was arrested hours after the fatal shooting of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart, and whether what they took from him that day was lawfully taken. On Tuesday evening 8 September 2026 the defence answered it with paper. Per The Citizen and Eyewitness News, it handed senior state prosecutor Advocate Elize le Roux a bundle of close to a hundred pages of automatic vehicle location records, the tracking data for the police vehicles used by the officers who arrested Kekana; Eyewitness News puts the number of vehicles at fifteen. The timing is what the state objected to. Le Roux told the High Court in Johannesburg: 'What sits uncomfortably with the state here is that this was provided yesterday to us just shortly before I indicated that I am close to closing the state's case on the trial-within-a-trial.' She described it as an ambush, said she could no longer close the state's case as planned, and asked for time to analyse the tracking reports, verify the locations and consult potential witnesses before deciding whether to call another police officer. Matlala's attorney, Anneline van den Heever, objected to the characterisation: 'to stand there and cast aspersions, I find it unprofessional.' Advocate Nardus Grove, for accused two and five, pressed the other way: 'With the greatest of respect, this trial is proceeding very slowly.' Judge Cassim Moosa sided with the prosecution and gave it the time, and the matter stood down to Thursday 10 September 2026. On Tuesday the same judge had already ruled Kekana's 2024 bail affidavit admissible; the tracking records are the defence's answer on the other half of the argument, the police version of the arrest itself, which Kekana says involved an assault. Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, Tsakane Matlala, Kekana, Tiego Floyd Mabusela and Nthabiseng Zandile Nzama pleaded not guilty in July 2026 to 25 charges including attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, fraud and money laundering. This is a dispute about evidence and disclosure inside a criminal trial, not a finding on any charge. Nothing has been determined against any accused and all are presumed innocent.
OpenTwo of the people who allegedly took the cocaine have turned state witness, and the Hawks say the hunt has moved to their own head office
On Wednesday 9 September 2026, the second and final day of Lucas Legabe's formal bail application at the Port Shepstone Magistrate's Court, the state disclosed how it intends to prove the theft of 541kg of cocaine from a Hawks storage facility: with two of the people it says were there. Per Eyewitness News, state prosecutor Zwelethu Mata told the court that two accomplices have agreed to testify as section 204 witnesses, a route in which a witness gives evidence for the state in exchange for possible indemnity, and that their account places Legabe inside the building on the night. Mata put it this way: 'The applicant's participation began prior to and even during the incident itself in which he was among the people who went in and stole the drugs.' The same witnesses say Legabe was given a share of the stolen consignment and sold it. Legabe, a 49-year-old Pretoria businessman arrested on 7 August 2026, denies all of it, and told the court his arrest was made without a warrant and was 'prima facie unlawful', that 'I have not received the contents of any incriminating statements', and that 'there's no other indication that I'm linked to the crime'. He repeated his allegation, first made on Tuesday, that 'I was tortured to implicate police officers in the break-in'. He offered R20,000 bail against a stated monthly income of R100,000 and argued that an overcrowded, poorly ventilated cell would worsen his asthma and sinusitis. Separately, and this is the part that reaches back into the commission's own record, Hawks national spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale told TimesLIVE the investigation has turned inward: 'The investigation is now concentrated at head office where we are looking at every avenue.' Mogale has also said the arrest came from years of intelligence-driven work rather than from evidence led at the commission. The commission has been asking the same question from the other side since 1 and 2 September, when retired Hawks national head Lieutenant-General Godfrey Lebeya was pressed on why Major-General Lesetja Senona, who held a key to the safe room, was never polygraphed. Argument closed that afternoon and Magistrate's Court judgment was reserved: per IOL, the ruling on whether Legabe gets bail comes on Monday 14 September 2026, the same day this commission resumes public hearings. The state's opposition rests on the witnesses themselves. In an affidavit before the court, Hawks investigator Captain Mothapo Mashau argued that Legabe knows exactly who they are: 'In this regard the applicant is aware who the witnesses are and that there is there will always be that fear that one may interfere with witnesses given that he is well acquainted with them.' Mata told the court that 'at least two witnesses in their statements reveal that the Applicant on this matter together with other co-perpetrators had several meetings'. On the question this archive has been watching since the arrest, whether the commission's evidence produced it, Colonel Mogale has been explicit to The Citizen: 'The investigation was happening, and the arrest did not come into effect because of what was mentioned at the Madlanga commission.' Nothing here is a finding. What two section 204 witnesses say is an untested allegation until a court tests it, and their own exposure is a reason to weigh it carefully; Legabe has not pleaded, no court has ruled on his torture allegation, no police officer has been charged over the theft, and everyone concerned is presumed innocent.
OpenThe man arrested at the commission's own front door is out on R5,000 bail, and the magistrate would not hold an erased record against him
Stuart James Scharnick, 40, is the only person so far arrested at the venue where this commission sits. On 20 August 2026 a Sowetan journalist, Herman Moloi, laid an intimidation complaint after a confrontation during a tea break at the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College in Pretoria, and Scharnick was arrested outside the building the same day. He was then charged before the Randburg Magistrate's Court with contraventions of the Firearms Control Act and held in custody. On Wednesday 9 September 2026, per The Citizen, IOL and TimesLIVE, the court granted him R5,000 bail over the state's objection. He must surrender his passport to the investigating officer and tell that officer if he moves out of Gauteng or leaves the country. The court refused the state's request that he report to Randburg police station once a week, finding he was not a flight risk. The state had opposed bail on his previous convictions, on an allegation that his criminal record had been manipulated, and on his associations; the magistrate declined all three grounds, saying of the expunged record 'it does not exist anymore ... no reason for me to take such as a previous conviction', and of the company he keeps 'there is nothing wrong with being associated with people in high places'. Scharnick matters to this archive because of what was said about him from the stand. In November 2025 Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo told the commission that Scharnick was suspended deputy national commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya's personal protector while not employed by the police, and set out 34 recorded cases against his name; Major-General Anthony Gopaul told the commission those records had been expunged at Durban's criminal record centre on 16 January 2025. Scharnick denies all of it, says he has never worked in security, says the convictions come from one vehicle-scheme matter more than a decade old, and has opened criminal cases against Khumalo. His profile is published today. Bail is not a verdict and testimony is not a finding. Scharnick has pleaded to nothing, the commission has made no finding about him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenParliament's committee agrees that disbanding the task team could have served organised crime, and stops short of saying that is why it was done
Three days before its report is due, Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Allegations made by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi settled the findings it can agree on. The committee sat on the evening of Monday 7 September 2026 and again on Tuesday 8 September. Per Eyewitness News and the Mail & Guardian, it has agreed that the disbandment of the KwaZulu-Natal Political Killings Task Team 'could have aided the motives of such interests', meaning organised crime; that the evidence of suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, whose 31 December 2024 directive disbanded the team, contained material inconsistencies, his stated reasons contradicting concessions he made in his own testimony; and that 'the removal and movements of PKTT case dockets could have delayed cases and hampered investigations'. It has equally agreed on the limit of what it found: 'the evidence does not establish that this directive was issued pursuant to a corrupt agreement or for the purpose of protecting a cartel or criminal syndicate'. The chairperson, Soviet Lekganyane, drew the boundary himself when the grouping this archive's evidence calls the 'Big Five' came up: 'I don't want to say the Big Five because we did not make a finding about the Big Five.' The committee remains split on what follows. The MK Party and the EFF argued that the circumstantial evidence connecting Mchunu to criminal networks through Brown Mogotsi and Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala warrants further investigation; the ANC and the Patriotic Alliance argued the evidence is insufficient and cautioned the committee against reviewing an executive decision. The committee did record that 'the incomplete decision trail, the timing and implementation of the directive, the leaking of the directive and the surrounding relationships' deserve further scrutiny. It must report to the National Assembly by Friday 11 September 2026, three days before this commission's hearings resume. A draft is not an adopted report and a parliamentary finding is not a criminal verdict. Mchunu denies wrongdoing, nothing here has been determined against him, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe first person charged over the Port Shepstone cocaine theft tells a court he was tortured to make him implicate police
The 541kg cocaine theft that this commission spent June 2026 examining, and returned to on 1 September when it put the storage question to retired Hawks national head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya, has produced its first accused. Lucas Legabe, a 49-year-old Pretoria businessman, was arrested in Gauteng on 7 August 2026 by the Serious Organised Crime Investigation unit and charged with theft and dealing in drugs; he appeared in the Germiston Magistrate's Court on 11 August and was transferred to KwaZulu-Natal, where he has been held in custody. Per TimesLIVE, The Citizen and IOL, his bail application was heard in the Port Shepstone Magistrate's Court on Tuesday 8 September 2026. In his affidavit he denied the charge - 'I deny any involvement in the matter and was not responsible for the actions mentioned by the state' - and he told the court that after his arrest he was tortured in order to make him implicate police officers in the break-in. He also asked to be released on the ground that overcrowding and poor ventilation in custody aggravate his asthma and sinusitis, making detention 'not conducive' to his health. The state opposes bail and the application continues on Wednesday 9 September 2026. The consignment was found in a container at the CHC depot in Isipingo in June 2021 after a tip about a far smaller quantity, was taken about 100km to the Hawks' Port Shepstone offices instead of a forensic laboratory, and was cut out of the safe in a burglary that November; the firearms in the same room were left. The Hawks say further arrests have not been ruled out. An allegation of torture made from the dock is untested, as is the charge against the man who makes it. Legabe has not pleaded, no court has determined anything against him, and he is presumed innocent. No police officer has been charged over the theft.
OpenThe High Court admits Kekana's own bail affidavit against him, and the Matlala trial-within-a-trial loses its first argument
On Tuesday 8 September 2026, while the commission is in recess, Judge Cassim Moosa ruled in the High Court in Johannesburg that the affidavit accused number one Musa Kekana filed in his 2024 bail application is admissible as evidence in the criminal trial of Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala and four co-accused. Per SABC News, Eyewitness News and The Citizen, the point was narrow and it mattered: Kekana's counsel, Advocate Riaan Gissing, argued that the warning the magistrate gave him at the bail hearing contemplated oral testimony and not a sworn affidavit, and that 'the warning given to [Kekana] at that stage was inadequate and as such the evidence ... should be disallowed'. Senior prosecutor Advocate Elize le Roux answered that 'evidence is evidence' and that the statute was wide enough to cover both. The judge held that the magistrate, Mr Chris Kruger, had given an adequate and timeous warning that referenced section 60(11B)(c) of the Criminal Procedure Act, and that the warning applied equally to a sworn bail affidavit even though he had not mentioned affidavits by name: 'The affidavit having been placed before the bail court under an adequate and timeous warning, in principle, forms part of the trial court.' The state may now rely on what Kekana said to secure his release. The trial-within-a-trial is testing whether his arrest on 17 April 2024, hours after the fatal shooting of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart, and the evidence taken from him that day, were lawful; the defence has accused the police of 'severe unlawful conduct', and a witness detained alongside Kekana told the court on Monday that officers pulled a beanie over his eyes for about four hours. The matter was postponed to Thursday 10 September 2026 after the state asked for time to consider vehicle location records the defence had produced. Matlala, Tsakane Matlala, Kekana, Tiego Floyd Mabusela and Nthabiseng Zandile Nzama pleaded not guilty in July 2026 to 25 charges including attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, fraud and money laundering. This is a ruling on the admissibility of evidence, not a finding on any charge. Nothing has been determined against any of the accused and all are presumed innocent.
OpenA commissioner is being threatened, and the body that reported it says the campaign has nothing to do with the commission
On Tuesday 8 September 2026 Advocates for Transformation, an association of practising advocates, said that its national chairperson Advocate Myron Dewrance SC and Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC, one of the two commissioners sitting with Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga on this inquiry, are the targets of a sustained campaign of threats and intimidation. Per TimesLIVE and Jacaranda FM, the messages have come from a number of different cellphone numbers, the sender has claimed to know the targets' locations, workplaces and daily movements, and the campaign has widened beyond the two advocates themselves. AFT put the escalation in its own words: 'The threats have become increasingly pernicious and aggressive, have spread to family members and other persons, and have now escalated, for the first time, to explicit threats of sexual violence against women.' It said it would pursue all lawful measures to identify those responsible, and that 'the rule of law cannot be allowed to succumb to fear'. Police are investigating. The point that matters most for this archive is the one the social-media accounts circulating the story have dropped: AFT says the threats are not connected to Khumalo's work on this commission. Its preliminary inquiries point instead to disciplinary proceedings against a member of the Johannesburg Society of Advocates, from the period when Khumalo chaired the JSA's Professional Committee and sat on its Bar Council. No person has been identified, charged or found responsible for the threats, and nothing here implicates any witness or party before the commission.
OpenA station commander traced out of retirement takes the stand in Matlala's criminal trial, and the defence calls his evidence hearsay
While the commission is in recess, the criminal trial of Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala and four co-accused continued in the High Court in Johannesburg on Monday 7 September 2026, inside a trial-within-a-trial that is testing whether the arrest of accused number one, Musa Kekana, and the evidence taken from him were lawful. Per Eyewitness News and TimesLIVE, the state called Colonel Owen King, who commanded the Bramley police station at the time of Kekana's arrest and had since retired to Durban. Senior prosecutor Advocate Elize le Roux said the state had gone to some lengths to produce him: 'We managed to trace Colonel King and have made great progress in presenting his evidence in court. He retired to Durban, but he is willing to come and testify.' Kekana's case is that King pressed staff at Edenvale Hospital to discharge him before his treatment was complete and had him moved to a holding cell at Bramley. King told the court he had acted on a telephone call warning him that Kekana was planning to escape from the hospital, and that he was worried about who else might be hurt: 'My concern was my staff or people at the hospital could be injured.' Under questioning he accepted that he had never met the caller: 'My lord, I never met the doctor, but the person on the other line had an accent that was not from South Africa.' The defence objected that the evidence is inadmissible hearsay, because it cannot cross-examine a doctor it cannot identify, and the objection interrupted the state's line of questioning. The state told the court it expects to close its case in the trial-within-a-trial by Tuesday 8 September. Matlala and his co-accused pleaded not guilty in July 2026 to 25 charges, including attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder and money laundering, arising from the alleged attempts on the lives of Tebogo Thobejane and Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni. This is an argument about the admissibility of evidence in a criminal trial, not a finding on any charge. Every accused has pleaded not guilty, nothing has been determined against any of them, and all are presumed innocent.
OpenRamaphosa tells the police the commission must work 'without fear, favour or interference', and that what it has exposed must not become paralysis
On Sunday 6 September 2026, with the commission dark for its recess, President Cyril Ramaphosa used the keynote at the South African Police Service National Commemoration Day at the Union Buildings in Tshwane to speak about the inquiry directly. It is the Presidency's first substantial comment on the commission since public hearings adjourned on 2 September. The service commemorated twelve officers who died in the line of duty in the past financial year, nine of them from Gauteng and one each from North West, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga; the youngest was 25. Per the Presidency's published text of the address and SAnews, the President said the underlying allegations are 'deeply disturbing': 'The allegations that have been made about criminal infiltration, corruption and political interference in parts of our criminal justice system are deeply disturbing.' On the inquiry he appointed, he said: 'The revelations emerging from the Judicial Commission of Inquiry have raised legitimate questions about policing, leadership, accountability and institutional integrity. This must not result in paralysis. Instead, it must be a catalyst for renewal.' He then set out what he expects to follow from it: 'The Commission must be allowed to do its work thoroughly and without fear, favour or interference. Where wrongdoing is established, there must be consequences. Where crimes have been committed, the law must take its course.' Addressing the police service itself, he said South Africans 'are entitled to know that those entrusted with fighting crime are not themselves working with criminals', and that 'there can be no place in the SAPS for criminals. There can be no place for corruption, and there can be no place for political interference in the work of the police.' He tied the two obligations together: 'We cannot build public confidence in the police unless we root out corruption.' Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia also spoke at the service. The President appointed this commission and is the person to whom it must report, by what was then 16 November 2026 and is now 25 January 2027. A statement of expectation by the appointing authority is not a finding, and it determines nothing about any person or allegation before the commission.
OpenParliament's committee on the same allegations splits over Mchunu's task-team directive, a week before its report is due
Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee to Investigate Allegations made by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi - the National Assembly inquiry running in parallel with this commission on the same July 2025 allegations - sat again on Thursday 4 September 2026 and could not agree on its central question. Per Eyewitness News, members remained divided over whether suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu's 31 December 2024 directive to disband the Political Killings Task Team was connected to shielding organised crime from investigation. Patriotic Alliance MP Ashley Sauls put one position: 'Therefore, we as the committee are able to say we don't see any direct link between the directive and the protection of criminal elements.' EFF MP Leigh-Ann Mathys objected that the committee was in no position to make findings either way: 'We can't even make a finding that there was criminal infiltration, even if there was evidence before us.' The MK Party submitted that the committee should find that Mchunu misrepresented to Parliament the extent of his consultation with President Cyril Ramaphosa before he issued the directive. The committee, chaired by Soviet Lekganyane, was revived by the Speaker under National Assembly Rule 253(6)(c) and was then due to report to the House by 11 September 2026, a deadline since extended to 30 October 2026 - three days before this commission's public hearings resume, and ten weeks before the commission's own report is due to the President. Its standing draft findings, reported when the preliminary report was first circulated in July 2026, are that Mchunu faces unresolved executive accountability and integrity concerns over the directive but that the evidence does not establish that he entered a corrupt agreement or acted on the instruction of a cartel, and that suspended deputy national commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya leaves serious unresolved issues over his handling of 121 dockets and his implementation of the directive without the evidence proving that he acted for Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala, Brown Mogotsi or an organised crime network. A draft report is not an adopted report, and a parliamentary finding is not a criminal verdict. Both men deny wrongdoing, nothing here has been determined against either of them, and both are presumed innocent.
OpenThe chairperson spends a recess Friday on the people who cannot get into a courtroom at all
On Friday 4 September 2026, the second day of the commission's recess, its chairperson, retired Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, delivered the University of Cape Town Law Faculty's annual Rabinowitz Lecture. Per eNCA and SABC News, he spoke about access to courts and about inequality as the barrier to it, not about the inquiry he chairs. He put the problem in numbers: 'More than half of litigating South Africans had to represent themselves in court during 2025. This without legal knowledge and familiarity with court process.' He went on to say that even litigants who can afford representation may not achieve equality of arms, because what they can afford may limit them to a lawyer of a certain level of skill. Neither outlet reports him saying anything about the commission, about its evidence or about any person appearing before it, and this archive records nothing suggesting he did. A lecture by the chairperson on an unrelated subject is not a statement of the commission and carries no implication for any witness.
OpenKhan's lawyers say they will challenge his dismissal, a fortnight before he is due on the stand
On Thursday 3 September 2026, the first day of the commission's recess, Major-General Feroz Khan's legal team told Eyewitness News that they have to challenge the South African Police Service's decision to dismiss him, confirmed the previous day. Khan has already been to the Labour Court once on this process: on 31 August Judge Connie Prinsloo struck his urgent application to halt the disciplinary off the roll for want of jurisdiction, alternatively urgency, with costs against his union. He did not attend the expeditious disciplinary hearing, saying he was still recovering from the gunshot wounds he sustained in June 2026 and suffering post-traumatic stress. None of this touches the allegations before the Madlanga Commission, which he has still not answered from the witness box: his evidence is set down for Monday 28 September 2026, and he will be excused only if by 8 September he voluntarily submits to an independent specialist, agreed between his lawyers and the evidence leaders, who reports that he cannot testify. The service defended the outcome the same day: per Eyewitness News, national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said that 'no member, regardless of rank or position, is above the law or the applicable disciplinary framework'. An employer's decision and an employee's appeal are steps in an employment dispute, not findings on anything the commission is examining. Khan is presumed innocent.
OpenKhan misses the precious-metals case a second time; the state asks for a J50 warrant and the matter goes to November
On the same day he was dismissed, Major-General Feroz Khan failed for the second time to appear in the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court in the illicit precious-metals matter, and the state applied for J50 arrest warrants to secure the accused. Per The Citizen and SABC News his legal team put up medical records to account for the absence. His co-accused are Gauteng Hawks head Major-General Ebrahim Kadwa and businessman Tariq Downes; the three were arrested on 10 May 2026 over a 2021 incident at OR Tambo International Airport in which 75.9 grams of raw gold worth about R62,836 was seized, and all three are out on R20,000 bail each. The charges include corruption, defeating the ends of justice and contravening the Precious Metals Act. The defence complained of disclosure delays, one representative telling the court that 'the state is the author of the situation we find ourselves in', and indicated that a co-accused may make representations to the National Prosecuting Authority for the charges to be withdrawn once outstanding documents are received. The matter was postponed to 27 November 2026. A warrant application and a charge are steps in a prosecution, not findings. Nothing has been tried, none of the three has pleaded, and all are presumed innocent.
OpenSAPS dismisses Feroz Khan, deeming him fired for failing to attend his own disciplinary
The South African Police Service dismissed suspended Crime Intelligence deputy head Major-General Feroz Khan on Wednesday 2 September 2026. Per the Daily Maverick and Eyewitness News, national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe confirmed that he was 'deemed dismissed' under Regulation 9(7)(b) of the SAPS Discipline Regulations, for 'failure to appear before the designated senior officer responsible for dealing with the expeditious disciplinary process'. That is a deeming provision rather than a verdict on the merits: the sanction follows from his non-attendance. Khan's position has been that he could not attend because he was still recovering from the gunshot wounds of an apparent assassination attempt in Houghton on 28 June 2026 and was suffering post-traumatic stress. The disciplinary had already produced a finding of guilt on misconduct and bringing the service into disrepute with a recommendation of dismissal, and the Labour Court had struck his bid to stop it off the roll two days earlier. He remains a witness the commission has summoned and has not yet heard. An internal employment outcome is not a criminal conviction and decides none of the untested allegations before the inquiry; Khan is presumed innocent.
OpenDay 172
Witnesses: Dr Mark Shaw, Lt-Gen Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya. The last public sitting before the commission's recess ran two witnesses and two registers. In the morning retired Hawks national head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya concluded the evidence he began on 27 August, and evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube put a photograph in front of him. It had been recovered from the phone of murder-accused businessman Katiso 'KT' Molefe, and the commission's evidence is that it shows five men it has been calling the 'Big Five': Molefe himself, private security businessman Steve Motsumi, Ignatius Mothakathi, the man known as 'King Nyambose' - reported by SABC News and EWN as Andrew 'Boy' Mthethwa and by TimesLIVE and The Citizen as Jabu Mthethwa - and the late taxi boss Jotham 'Mswazi' Msibi. Lebeya said he knew none of it. 'I have no knowledge of that organised criminal grouping at all, and I even doubt if it is registered as an organised crime project,' he told the panel, per the African News Agency, and of the men in the picture: 'I don't think that it is strange that we do not know all people in South Africa. I do not know them.' The difficulty was a WhatsApp message. On 6 December 2024, the night Molefe was arrested at Sandhurst and Hawks units unexpectedly arrived, the businessman who uses the name Malcolm X wrote to Lebeya: 'Thank you for sending people who verified these gentlemen are policemen and King Nyambose really appreciates all your efforts general.' Lebeya's evidence, per The Citizen, was that he did not engage with it - 'I was not really interested in the message itself' and 'I did not ask him who is this King Nyambose' - and chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga would not leave it there: 'What were you being thanked for? And who on Earth is this Nyambose?' Segeels-Ncube put the pattern to him plainly: 'You were the head of the DPCI and there have been generals that have come before the commission who have been afraid to mention some of these individuals. I just find it bizarre that you do not know any of these individuals.' Lebeya also confirmed he had known since October 2023 that Malcolm X had been arrested with three police officers on corruption and extortion allegations. He closed on his own record: 'I am incorruptible.' In the afternoon the register changed completely. Dr Mark Shaw, executive director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, gave expert evidence placing everything the commission has heard this year inside an international measurement. Per EWN and SABC News, he told the panel that 'South Africa is in the top 5% of all countries in the world in respect of criminal markets and actors as measured by the index', that on a survey of 193 countries South Africa ranks seventh globally for organised crime, that its homicide rate exceeds Colombia's and Mexico's and now resembles Ecuador's, and that the country's criminal markets run from drug trafficking and extortion to financial crime, illicit trade and cybercrime. He tied the ranking to state capture and to criminal infiltration of state institutions, and pointed to what other jurisdictions did about it, including Italy's restructuring of its anti-mafia prosecution system and legislation on the unexplained wealth of public officials. The commission then rose. It goes into recess from 3 to 11 September and resumes on Monday 14 September. Nothing here is a finding. The 'Big Five' remains an alleged network, every person named in the photograph is presumed innocent, Lebeya denies wrongdoing, and none of it has been tested in any court.
OpenMogotsi's fourth bail bid is postponed to 11 September as he answers the escape allegation
North West businessman Brown Mogotsi appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on 1 September 2026 for a fourth bail application and took the stand to answer the state's allegation, made the previous week, that he had planned to escape from the court holding cells disguised in a Correctional Services uniform. Per EWN he denied it and accused the investigating officer of pursuing a personal vendetta against him, and described how on the morning of 20 August an officer he had never met before boarded his transport vehicle and cuffed his legs. The magistrate did not rule: after Mogotsi challenged the evidence, the state asked for transcripts of his earlier appearances to be placed before the court, and the application was postponed to 11 September 2026. Mogotsi was arrested shortly after testifying at the Madlanga Commission and faces charges including perjury, defeating the ends of justice and unlawful possession of a firearm. He has pleaded to nothing, no court has determined any of it, and he is presumed innocent.
OpenThe commission goes into a short recess from 3 September, and resumes on the 14th
The Madlanga Commission announced on 1 September 2026 that it will go into recess from Thursday 3 September to 11 September 2026, seven working days, with the last day of public hearings before the break on Wednesday 2 September and hearings resuming on Monday 14 September. Per SAnews and the Mail & Guardian, spokesperson Jeremy Michaels said the recess is necessary so that two of the commissioners can honour commitments they made at the time the commission was due to have completed its work by 31 August 2026, the deadline that has since been extended. The commission's senior functionaries and extended team continue working through the break, preparing for the hearings that resume on 14 September. The dates that bracketed everything else were unchanged at the time: public evidence to close on 2 October 2026 and the final report due to President Cyril Ramaphosa on 16 November 2026. Both have since moved: 2 October became a recess, public hearings resume on 9 November 2026, and the report is due on 25 January 2027. This is a scheduling announcement and not a finding on anything before the inquiry.
OpenChairperson Ruling re. Maj. Gen. F. Khan postponement application
An official ruling added to the Madlanga Commission record.
OpenDay 171
Witness: Lt-Gen Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya. Two matters shared the second-to-last sitting before the commission's short recess. The first was the appearance the inquiry has been trying to secure since June. Suspended Crime Intelligence deputy head Major-General Feroz Khan was under subpoena to appear at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College on Tuesday morning and did not come; only his legal team did. The cross-examination of retired Hawks national head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya was stood down so the panel could hear Khan's postponement application, and what the commission got was not a medical argument but a documentary one. Per the Mail & Guardian and TimesLIVE, evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC put up an affidavit from Khan's treating doctor, Dr Fine, in which the doctor said he had altered a medical certificate at the request of Khan's son. The original, dated 22 May 2026, recorded that Khan would be fit to return to work on 30 June; a version produced on 20 August moved that date to 27 June and added a diagnosis of extreme stress, depression and anxiety. The doctor said he warned that changing a certificate already handed in could amount to fraud, and was told it had not been handed in. Hassim said the police records showed that it had, and that what SAPS had actually asked Khan for was more detail on his diagnosis, not a new date. 'It was a lie,' she told the commission, per The Citizen. She also framed why the commission was pressing: the interest 'is not an interest in General Khan's health as such - it's an interest in understanding why a senior public officer who is under a compulsory process' should not have to appear. Khan's counsel resisted an independent examination, invoking a 'white coat effect' and warning of 'a further cascade of the current condition that is recorded in the latest report'. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused to grant the postponement outright and instead borrowed the mechanism the commission used with Suleiman Carrim: Khan's evidence is postponed to Monday 28 September 2026 at 09:30, and he will be excused from appearing then only if he voluntarily submits by 8 September to an independent medical specialist agreed between his representatives and the evidence leaders, and that specialist reports that he cannot testify. His outstanding statement is due by 18 September. His general condition must be disclosed to the commission; the clinical detail may stay confidential. With the ruling delivered, Lebeya returned to the stand for his second appearance and evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube moved him off the Sandhurst arrest and onto the roughly 541kg of cocaine worth about R200 million that was seized at Durban harbour in 2021 and then stolen from a walk-in safe at the Hawks' Port Shepstone offices. Lebeya said he learned where the consignment was being kept only after it was gone: 'I can't recall him informing me as to where he has stored the drugs.' That is the opposite of what former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major General Lesetja Senona told this commission, which was that he had told Lebeya the Port Shepstone offices had safely stored a large quantity before. Segeels-Ncube put the fork to him directly: 'Because it's either that General Senona is lying, or you're lying, or you're both mistaken about what transpired.' Lebeya would not take it: 'I cannot say Senona had lied.' The commission also heard that the CCTV cameras and alarms at the office were not working and there was no round-the-clock guard, that firearms stored in the same place were left untouched, and that Senona had members down to the cleaners polygraphed after the theft while never being polygraphed himself, though the evidence is that he held keys to the safe room. Lebeya said the discipline of a provincial head's own conduct was a matter for the supervisory line, and said he had ordered both a fact-finding inquiry and a criminal investigation once he learned of the theft. He is part-heard. Nothing here is a finding. The allegations about the certificate, the theft and the storage are untested, no court has determined any of them, and everyone named is presumed innocent.
OpenKhan's subpoena stands despite a return to hospital, and the Carrim criminal case is opened
The Madlanga Commission's spokesperson Jeremy Michaels briefed reporters on 31 August 2026 on two matters that both bear on whether the inquiry finishes its programme. On suspended Major-General Feroz Khan, subpoenaed to give evidence on Tuesday 1 September 2026, Michaels said the subpoena stands: per the African News Agency and SABC News, Khan had been readmitted to hospital days before the date, his legal team had been in contact with the commission and had signalled a possible postponement application, but no application had been lodged, and the commission's position is that the summons remains in force unless it is formally set aside. Khan's appearances have been postponed on medical grounds several times since June 2026 and his lawyers previously invited the commission to verify his condition in hospital. Separately, Michaels confirmed that the criminal case against North West businessman Suleiman Carrim was opened last week by the commission's secretary, giving effect to the chairperson's 14 August 2026 ruling that charges be laid over Carrim's repeated failure to appear. Michaels said the commission was working to complete its programme by its deadline; public evidence was then expected to close on 2 October 2026 and the final report was due on 16 November 2026; 2 October has since become a recess and the report is now due on 25 January 2027. Opening a case and holding a subpoena in force are procedural steps, not findings. Neither man has been convicted of anything, the allegations before the commission that concern them are untested, and both are presumed innocent.
Open
People also ask
Following the Madlanga Commission today
- Is the Madlanga Commission sitting today?
The Madlanga Commission sits on scheduled hearing days, which typically run for several hours. This page lists the newest hearing days on the record, newest first, so the entry at the top shows the most recent sitting. For the full calendar of past and upcoming days, see the hearings timeline and the schedule.
- How can I follow the Madlanga Commission live today?
The Commission's hearings are broadcast publicly on the official commission platform. Because a single sitting day can run eight to ten hours, this archive distils each day into a readable summary - who testified and what was said - and publishes it here as soon as the day lands on the record. Subscribe by RSS to be notified as each new day, ruling and document is added.
- Where can I read what happened at the Madlanga Commission today?
Right here. Every new hearing day, ruling and official document is indexed on this page newest first, with a plain-language summary and links to the witnesses, cases and documents involved - so you can catch up on the Madlanga Commission today without watching the full live feed.
- Who is testifying at the Madlanga Commission today?
The most recent witness on the stand is featured on the home page and in the latest hearing-day entry below. Each witness links to a full profile with their role, the case they speak to, and every day they have appeared.