A number of murder and kidnapping cases linked to suspended crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli are being investigated, some for the first time, according to a report on Wednesday.
Included in the new investigations were the disappearance of people believed to be crime intelligence informants from Vosloorus on the East Rand more than 13 years ago, the Times newspaper reported.
According to the newspaper, a senior Hawks team had been ordered to probe the involvement of Mdluli and one of his co-accused in the murder case, Colonel Nkosana Ximba.
Over the past few months investigators had been gathering evidence and compiling dockets, including taking statements from families of the missing people, victims and police officers who worked with Mdluli and Ximba when they were stationed in Vosloorus.
One of the cases being investigated was the disappearance of two men from their homes in Vosloorus in 1998.
Lunga Khumalo and Thulani Shoba, aged 21 and 24 respectively at the time, were last seen by relatives when Ximba allegedly picked them up from their homes in a police car. Their families had been pleading for help in finding their sons for years, to no avail.
Unnamed “sources close to the investigations” were quoted as saying that it was “a matter of time” before more criminal activity was uncovered.
Mdluli and three others were expected to go on trial in the high court in Johannesburg in April next year on charges of intimidation, kidnapping, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder.
They are accused of involvement in a decade-old love triangle murder. Mdluli faces an additional charge of defeating or obstructing the course of justice. — Sapa