Giving testimony: Brigadier Lesiba Mokoena of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, also known as the Hawks. Photo: X: Maggsnaidu
Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) Brigadier Lesiba Mokoena has denied interference during a political task team takedown operation in the arrest of murder suspects and alleged leaders of the “Big Five” cartel, Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala and Katiso Molefe, on 6 December.
He told the Madlanga commission of inquiry into political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system the day after he was promoted to Hawks brigadier, he received a call from Divisional Commissioner Patrick Mbotho, who asked him to attend to a complaint of police impersonation at a Sandhurst address.
“The address was coming from General Mbotho of which I forwarded it to Captain Kruger,” he said.
He denied sending a large group and said he had not commissioned the deployment of the helicopter which circled Molefe’s house during the arrest.
Mokoena emphasised sending only two members of his tactical operations management section team to verify whether it was a legitimate police operation.
“I sent two members. According to Captain Wanda’s testimony, he said a group of Hawks members, so there’s a difference from what my instructions was with my two members only,” he said.
On Wednesday, Maxwell Wanda, a former member of the KwaZulu-Natal-based political killings task team, told the commission that a large contingent of Hawks members had arrived during the joint operation with the Gauteng organised crime unit.
“They came in numbers and I didn’t expect them to be that big. And when I interacted with them, they were a bit aggressive, demanding answers, posing questions to me,” Wanda said.
He added that Hawks Captain Barry Kruger only backed off his team when Witness A — a police officer who first testified to the commission about the Hawks’ intrusion — showed him a J50 arrest warrant signed by a magistrate and details of his commanding officer.
“In my view, the conduct of the Hawks constitutes interference or disturbance with the legitimate takedown operation in circumstances where there was no basis for their presence at the scene,” Wanga told the commission.
The takedown operation at Molefe’s Sandhurst residence led to the disbandment of the task team a month later by suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu.
KZN Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi appeared before parliament’s police portfolio committee in May, where he argued against the task team’s disbandment.
At a press conference in July, he alleged police and political collusion with criminal syndicates.
Mkhwanazi singled out Mchunu and Deputy National Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya at the senior executive level and claimed they had dissolved the task team when it was closing in on Gauteng drug cartels — notably the Big Five.
Several anonymous witnesses have told the commission of interference in investigations by divisional heads when the KZN task team assisted the Gauteng organised crime unit in the arrest of Johannesburg Central police station detective, Pule Tau, who allegedly acted as Katiso and Molefe’s hitman.
The 15 gun cartridges found in Tau’s possession, and at the murder scene of Armand Swart, a Vereeniging engineer believed to be a whistleblower, became the centre of attention at the commission this week, with police forensic experts stating a ballistic report was doctored to de-link the murder to other cases involving the Big Five cartel.
Mokoena also implicated former Hawks head Godfrey Lebiya as the person who first issued the order to verify the legitimacy of the joint operation and who sent Molefe’s address. He said Lebeya sent information that someone was impersonating him and Hawks members.
Former political killings task team member Wanda told the commission an unidentified member of the Hawks team handed him a phone with a call from Mokoena, who apologised for the Hawks’ intrusion and said they had been given wrong information.
Mokoena told him the Hawks executive team was not in Gauteng at the time and then Mokoena turned on video call to show that they were at a South African Police Service excellence awards ceremony.
Co-commissioner Sisisi Baloyi highlighted that Mokoena’s phone call, a critical intervention in de-escalating the situation, was not mentioned in Kruger’s affidavit.
Speaking before the commission on Wednesday, Kruger said he did not recall handing over his phone to Wanda to speak to Mokoena. He denied knowing the unidentified individual who handed Wanda the phone call from Mokoena.
However, Mokoena said: “To the best of my recollection, Captain Kruger told me that he was with the head or leader of the takedown operation, Captain Wanda.
“And Captain Kruger gave his phone to Captain Wanda for me to speak to him,” adding he had turned on video call to reassure Wanda.
“It was to prove to him to say the same General Lebeya that they allege to be at the scene is with me at the national awards,” he said
When asked to confirm the phone call, Kruger said: “It could have happened, but I never wrote it down, and I don’t see it in my records.”
However, Kruger admitted Mokoena did not specifically order a large Hawks contingent, but said the “urgency” of the order and multiple phone calls made it seem like a huge operation.
“You’ll never know on your way like that, and you are under pressure to get there and get the answers required,” he said.
Kruger told the commission he didn’t know whose address they were going to.
He told Mokoena that he was in Pretoria, far from the scene in Sandhurst, and that his vehicle “did not have blue lights or sirens and the tyres were not roadworthy”.
He said Mokoena insisted he should go to the scene nonetheless.
“I was simply carrying out an instruction from my commander the best way I know how, given the urgency he expressed during the initial call, and the fact that he persistently contacted me while I was on route to the address,” Kruger said.
When pressed about the inconsistencies of his testimony regarding the phone call compared to the other witnesses, Mokoena said he could not recall the specifics of that day
“If he indeed [it] can [be] confirm[d], that then from my side, I would be owing the commission an apology and then I would also secondly be in a position that I didn’t tell the truth to the commission to my best ability,” Mokoena said.