The shooting of a vital witness casts doubt on the Durban police ordered to protect him, writes Ann Eveleth
A key witness in a KwaZulu-Natal political murder inquiry was shot twice while hiding in a hotel under police protection, it emerged this week.
The man, 23-year-old Nhlakanipho Nxumalo, survived the attack. But, weeks later, he was dumped from the state witness protection programme – before the murder investigation was complete and all the suspects caught.
He now says he fears for his life after police in charge of his safety allegedly threatened him and failed to take his statement after the attack.
Details of Nxumalo’s treatment at the hands of Durban police have now been handed to the Independent Complaints Directorate, the body which probes allegations of police malpractice.
The national investigation task unit – the political murder squad handling the case in which Nxumalo is testifying – said this week it also had serious concerns about the incident.
Investigation chief Captain Mandlenkosi Vilikazi said he only found out about the shooting in June after Nxumalo had been removed from the witness protection programme. He has now put Nxumalo back under police protection.
Nxumalo and two other witnesses were vital to Vilikazi’s investigation into the 1995 murder of two relatives of Thulani Makhoba, an African National Congress local government councillor in northern KwaZulu- Natal.
The witnesses were assaulted by local police soon after their statements led to the arrest of three Inkatha Freedom Party- aligned suspects last year.
The three men – Mandlengquondo Mathonsi (an induna from the KwaMathonsi Tribal Authority), Patrick Mathonsi and Sibusiso Makhoba – have since been convicted and are serving jail sentences ranging from 18 to 22 years.
But a fourth suspect is still at large. Witnesses are supposed to remain under police protection until all the suspects have been caught and tried.
In an affidavit handed to the complaints directorate last week, Nxumalo charges that a police sergeant in charge of his safety had twice levelled death threats at him.
“I am scared that I am going to be killed while in the witness protection programme because I am convinced that [the sergeant], and perhaps other police from the programme, want to kill me,” Nxumalo said in an affidavit handed to the directorate last week.
“A man in a passage of the hotel approached me … he asked me my name but before I managed to tell him who I was he pulled out a pistol and shot me twice … about ten minutes after regaining consciousness in hospital I saw [the sergeant] enter the room. He stared down at me and left. I suspect he was involved in the attempt to kill me.”
Nxumalo alleged that the sergeant and two other witness protection officials had failed to take his statement and had attempted to cover up the shooting incident: “They told me not to tell Captain Vilikazi or members of my family or friends. It seemed like they were trying to cover up what had happened,” he said.
Vilikazi noted that officers in charge of Nxumalo’s safety had failed to register a case in respect of the shooting: “That’s why he is of the opinion that certain police members are involved,” he said.
But Durban police representative Inspector Vish Naidoo said a “skeleton” docket was opened immediately after the shooting, although Nxumalo’s statement was taken later because of his injuries. “A case of attempted murder is under investigation by detectives in Merebank,” he said.
Nxumalo’s suspicions of the protection unit run deeper: he said that the sergeant had earlier told him that the IFP had “better soldiers” than the ANC.
He also warned Nxumalo and his brother Johannes – also a witness – that “we were talking too much and one day we would open out mouths but not close them. I took this to mean that he was threatening us with death for testifying,” Nxumalo says in his affadavit. He says the sergeant later repeated the threat.
The director of the national witness protection programme, Piet Kleinhans, and programme coordinator Ben Groenewald visited Nxumalo and the other witnesses in June to tell them they were no longer needed and were off the programme. “They were both aggressive toward us,” Nxumalo says. “We were suspicious of the men because as far as we knew the case was still on.”
The witnesses were bundled out of the “safe” hotel. They contacted Vilikazi who told them they should still be under protection.
“I had to take steps to have them returned to protective custody,” Vilikazi said this week. “I am responsible for taking these kids from the custody of their parents, so everything that happens to them, whether they are injured or just taken to court, I must be informed.”
The three were still needed to testify, he said, and would spend a further three months under protection after the court case.
A Justice Ministry representative, Pieter du Rand, confirmed that Kleinhans and Groenewald had released the witnesses.