Paul Kirk
Chris MacAdam, the head of KwaZulu- Natal’s investigating directorate (organised crime and public safety), is facing a multimillion-rand lawsuit from soldiers who claim he wrongly arrested them for a massacre that followed the assassination of Sifiso Nkabinde.
Within hours of Nkabinde being gunned down in Richmond, a family of 11 African National Congress supporters were killed in what became known as the Ndabazitha massacre.
This week the lawyer for a group of soldiers arrested for the incident, Jeremy Diedrichs, said the soldiers are considering legal action against the team that arrested them and then admitted they had made a mistake.
The four soldiers now only stand accused of killing their alleged accomplice – Mbongoleni Mtolo, a well-known associate of Nkabinde. At the time of their arrest MacAdam contended that Mtolo was wounded during the massacre and then shot dead by the soldiers to stop him talking. The soldiers in turn claimed they shot Mtolo dead in a gunfight.
The Mail & Guardian can reveal that Mtolo’s R-5 assault rifle was the only weapon tied to the Ndabazitha massacre and that it was jammed as he was shot dead, indicating he had been firing the weapon at the time he was killed.
At the time of his death Mtolo had been released from custody by MacAdam. He had earlier been arrested for his alleged involvement in the “Tavern massacre”, in which Richmond residents were gunned down while watching the 1998 Soccer World Cup in a pub.
The release of the soldiers means that the killers are still at large – but they were named during in-camera court during proceedings.
Soon after the arrest of the soldiers, Ashin Singh – a magistrate attached to MacAdam’s unit – was approached by a bodyguard of Sifiso Nkabinde, who offered to point out the real killers.
This information, made after MacAdam had announced the arrests, apparently led to massive tension in the unit.
The bodyguard not only told Singh who was involved in the massacre but also offered to point out where the guns used in the killings were hidden. One of these firearms was malfunctioning at the time and as a result was used only to shoot the survivors in the head – administering the coup de grce.
This information tied in with ballistics reports from the scene, which showed the presence of a malfunctioning weapon.
On Monday morning Singh found MacAdam enraged. Sources claim MacAdam could be heard screaming that Singh was a “threat to national security” and ordering him to leave the office immediately and never come back.
When Singh attempted to contact Bulelani Ngcuka, he was told the national director of public prosecutions would not talk to him.
And soon after the argument over the arrests, MacAdam served a gagging order on Singh, preventing him from discussing any aspect of the Richmond investigations with anyone – and even prohibiting him from approaching the minister of justice or the public protector with his information.
During the court battle to fight the gagging order Singh named the alleged killers who were identified to him. He also named the accomplices who were aware of the Ndabazitha massacre. No action has ever been taken based on the information.