Russel Ngubo has an unusual curriculum vitae for a man who is deputy director of a provincial correctional services department
Paul Kirk
Russel Ngubo earned the nickname of “The Incredible Teflon Man” from his colleagues in the prison service. Nothing sticks to him, he never chips, he is completely indestructible.
Which perhaps explains his sanguine response to the Mail & Guardian article last week revealing that he is being investigated for at least 30 political murders in KwaZulu-Natal. Ngubo said this week: “Somebody is out to get me. There are sinister forces working in this province” – and left it at that.
Ngubo’s curriculum vitae is replete with grisly tales of murder and mayhem, but it is the story of his early days in the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) in 1990 that perhaps best exemplifies his unique method of doing business.
Ngubo (36), who entered the prison service in 1987, joined the union when it was illegal for members of the security forces to belong to any trade union. He was such a natural organi-ser that he was soon appointed deputy chair of the union in KwaZulu-Natal under Zwi Mdletshi.
When the union went on strike for the first time in 1990 Ngubo, then a little- known instructor at the Prison Services training college, was one of the first to down tools. As a result he was fired with 101 other members of the fledgling union. The Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of the trade union members – but the Department of Correctional Services reinstated them within a few months.
The department had hoped to facilitate a peaceful working environment, but the reinstatement of the union members did nothing of the sort. Ngubo, with Charles Ndumo – then an instructor as well – went on a campaign of organising violent industrial action throughout the province.
The department had to take out 10 interdicts in the Pietermaritzburg High Court to prevent the pair assaulting, harassing and even kidnapping prison management. Ngubo soon came to be the most feared name in KwaZulu-Natal prisons.
Rather than being fired, Ngubo was consistently promoted by management who wanted the firebrand on their side. Ngubo is now Popcru’s secretary in the Midlands.
In addition to being a member of Popcru, Ngubo was also a loyal supporter of the African National Congress policies as practised by his friend Sifiso Nkabinde, the Richmond strongman gunned down in 1999.
Ngubo learnt well from Nkabinde, acting as one of his most trusted lieutenants and helping to break up opposition political party meetings on a regular basis. Induna Earnest Nzimande, an ANC- supporting member of the amakhosi also assisted in their missions of mayhem – offering support but not partaking in the actual dirty work himself.
Among the many cases being investigated against Ngubo is one in which he allegedly ambushed police and KwaZulu-Natal’s Minister of Safety and Security Inyanga Ngubane, pounding them for more than half an hour with assault rifle fire as they travelled through Himeville.
Documents in possession of the M&G show one of Ngubo’s earliest alleged killings – though not his first – was that of IFP strongman and Impendle councillor Nash Ngubane, whom he allegedly kidnapped and murdered in late 1995.
A week later Ngubo’s home was attacked – an event which appears to have been something of a turning point in his alleged war against the IFP. His wife Phumile was shot in the back and paralysed. His child, Lindelani, was shot in the chest and died.
A week after that his brother Aaron – a police informer – was hacked and stabbed to death together with four Pietermaritzburg policemen as they went to arrest members of the IFP who had attacked his home.
Police say they believe the IFP mistook Aaron for Russel. After this Ngubo allegedly embarked on an intensified and bloody campaign against the IFP in revenge.
Using members of Popcru, Ngubo established a hit squad that based itself at the kraal of Thami Memela in the Izinga area, where the IFP members who attacked the Ngubo homestead lived. Police reports reveal how Ngubo’s hit squad at first attacked and killed Mgudleni Madlala at the Izinga tribal court. Then they allegedly killed wheelchair-bound IFP boss David Molefe by riddling his shack with bullets as he struggled to escape.
The group then attacked another IFP strongman, Zweli Mshengu, in a drive-by shooting, as he drove past Henley Dam near Himeville.
Memela’s homestead was then attacked by the local IFP in revenge.
During this attack several members of Memela’s family were severely wounded and the home was deserted, the Memelas moving into a home belonging to the Department of Correctional Services.
After their move Ngubo’s group were soon back in action and attacked a Bulwer home where the residents were known to be IFP supporters. However, they attacked and killed the wrong family and had to return the following day. This case was never successfully prosecuted as the two witnesses to the killings were themselves gunned down.
In early 1997 Ngubo was charged with the attempted murder of Goodenough Shange and Thembi Ngwenya who he was alleged to have shot in a drive-by shooting on the Stoffelton Road near Bulwer in October 1998. This case was never successfully prosecuted either; again the witnesses could not be found.
However, soon after this shooting, police raided Ngubo’s office and found a hit list with the names and addresses of Bulwer policemen who had allegedly irritated him by asking too many questions.
The next serious shooting incident involving Ngubo took place on the steps of the Pietermaritzburg High Court. During the trial of those accused of killing his brother, Ngubo was standing outside the court when a group of spectators emerged from the courtroom. Someone from the pavement shouted that the killers had been set free and Ngubo is alleged to have drawn his pistol and fired into the crowd. Nobody was wounded, and no charges were pressed as police could not find anyone in the crowded street willing to make a statement against Ngubo.
When Nkabinde was exposed as a police spy in 1997, Ngubo vowed bloody revenge on his former friend for betraying him. Within days of Nkabinde’s release from jail he got into a gun fight in a Pietermaritzburg suburb called the Grange. Ngubo was wounded in the left arm and Nka-binde escaped unscathed. Neither man laid criminal charges against the other. Police found no witnesses.
It was an alleged attempt to silence a witness that eventually got Ngubo into hot water. Induna Nzimande changed political sides after Nkabinde’s death and offered to spill the beans on murders allegedly committed by Ngubo’s hit squads. It is the murder of Nzimande that led the deputy director of public prosecutions in KwaZulu- Natal, Chris MacAdam, to set loose one of his top sleuths, Captain Johan Haggard, on Ngubo’s trail.
Nzimande was killed when three gunmen shot him to pieces with assault rifles as he drove through the Inkhumba area of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. The assailants then fled at high speed in a minibus with false number plates. However, they rolled the vehicle and had to abandon it after setting it alight.
Burning the vehicle did not destroy the engine and chassis numbers, though. The police identified the vehicle as having been hired by the Department of Correctional Services and delivered to Westville Prison.
The head of personnel at the New Prison, Charles Ndumo (Ngubo’s long-time friend), said the hired car had been stolen from him.
But police discovered that a car hired by Ndumo from Acksons Car Hire in Pietermaritzburg had been used in another drive-by shooting. The use of hired vehicles on both occasions and a similarity in modus operandi made investigators dig deeper. This week they began to draw dockets from around the province to probe other murders that may be linked to Ngubo.
Meanwhile, police are investigating Ngubo’s possible involvement in an illegal chop shop running on the grounds of the New Prison in Pietermaritzburg. In March this year police raided the jail’s workshops and found a stolen minibus taxi and numerous parts from suspected stolen motor vehicles.
Correctional Services employees contacted by the M&G were too afraid to speak of Ngubo on office telephones or to be named. One member told the M&G how he had a brick thrown through his window and a laser aiming sight shone at his chest in the middle of the night after he complained about Ngubo. Another said he was forced off the road and assaulted after complaining about his boss.
When Sipho Mzimela visited Ngubo’s New Prison in 1998 he publicly vowed to shut it down in newspaper interviews. The next day the Natal Witness quoted Ngubo as threatening to kill Mzimela should he carry out the threat. The prison was never closed.