An investigation has been launched into the arrests of six ANC members last month. Marianne Merten reports
National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka has appointed former Transvaal attorney general Jan d’Oliveira and police Deputy National Commissioner Solly Lavisa to probe last month’s brief detention of six leading Western Cape African National Congress members.
The investigation into the arrests of ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha, ANC councillor Gladstone Ntamo, Guguletu community policing forum head Danile Landingwe, KTC community policing forum deputy head Enoch Hewu, Alcott Siwa and Robert James has stalled the prosecution of another man.
As details of Daliwonga Mandela’s apparently irregular placement in the witness protection programme are emerging, police believe their suspect is the key to several political hits across the country since the early Nineties.
The ANC six were arrested in connection with the 1997 murder of former ANC member and KTC South African National Civics Organisation chair Milton Mbewana, who had joined the National Consultative Forum (NCF), the forerunner to the United Democratic Movement. He was killed a few days after the body of another NCF member, Nomhle Gexu, was discovered in Driftsands in late September 1997.
The charges were dropped the following day on the orders of the provincial director of public prosecutions, Frank Khan. Ngcuka’s investigation comes after the Western Cape ANC called for a probe.
Mandela, who claimed to be a disenchanted nephew of the former state president when he joined the New National Party in the Eastern Cape earlier this year, has already been charged with two counts of murder and arson. The Wynberg regional court postponed his trial to September 16.
State prosecutor Alexis Damon told the court the director of public prosecutions has asked for a postponement in light of the recent developments. “It is a sensitive matter. My instructions are not to disclose anything,” she said. “There are developments that occurred over the past week that may impact on the case. Things need to be worked through.”
Mandela has been in custody since April 15. Detectives working for the township-based, anti-crime initiative Operation Chaka tracked him to Port Elizabeth after the NNP had laid a charge of fraud against him for using a false identity book.
Mandela, who is insisting on using this name after having discarded several others, like his Russian alias Mikhail Antonov- Oveseyenko, Fikhile or his family name, Runtu Menze, is thought to be linked to political hits across South Africa.
Since 1990 he has popped up not only as a member of various political parties, but also in political flashpoints like KwaZulu- Natal’s Richmond and Midlands areas, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng. Several people who met him said he is highly intelligent, well-read and dangerous because he is “well-connected in political circles”.
At the centre of the investigation is the question of why he was kept in the witness protection programme for more than a year despite police telling various people that he would not testify against ANC members. Mandela allegedly confessed to Gexu’s killing.
It appears Mandela was put into the witness protection programme late in September 1997 on the instruction of the former head of the serious violent crimes unit, Leonard Knipe.
The ANC also had a hand in getting Mandela into the witness protection programme. Skwatsha met Mandela at the provincial legislature to discuss this. Skwatsha said he had helped police find their suspect and potential witness after he disappeared from the Guguletu police station cells. Said Skwatsha: “I got him. We took him to senior police.”
Former Western Cape deputy attorney general Willie Viljoen, now attached to the Cape Town-based special investigations directorate into organised crime and gangsterism, has confirmed he was told early in 1998 that Mandela was no longer going to be a witness.
An oral instruction was issued to release him. This was followed by a written instruction in October 1998. Yet Mandela was only released from the programme at the end of February this year.
Viljoen said the man should have been released immediately, but the delay is now under investigation “by a special unit”. It is believed inquiries have been made all the way to Pretoria.
At the heart of the case is the shadowy conflict in Cape Town’s townships, particularly the volatile KTC/Nyanga areas where tensions sporadically flare up. In September of 1997, tensions burst into attacks and counter-attacks shortly before the launch of the UDM. Mbewana was one of the victims. And Mandela was apparently the last person to see him alive.
The investigation into Mbewana’s killing stalled when detectives re-opened it after taking over from serious violent crimes unit investigators earlier this year. In 1997 Guguletu detectives initially arrested eight UDM members. They were released without being charged after police explained they had acted on “false information”.