The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry · Live public record
The Madlanga Commission, the inquiry the country can’t stop watching.
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is South Africa’s judicial commission investigating criminal infiltration, political interference and corruption in the police, prosecution and intelligence services, chaired by Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga. This archive turns the firehose of testimony - eight to ten hours a day, 172 sitting days - into a public record you can actually read: every hearing day, case, witness and network, cross-referenced.
- 172hearing days recorded
- 5case files reconstructed
- 38people tracked
- 3networks mapped
Counts update as the record grows. Last day added .
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The Commission names each day's witness only once proceedings begin - the schedule is not published in advance. The name, photo and details will appear here as soon as the hearing is under way. In the meantime, browse the witnesses heard so far.
What this is
The complete Madlanga Commission public record
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is South Africa’s judicial commission of inquiry into criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system, chaired by retired Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga. This archive is the most complete public record of the Madlanga Commission — we index every Madlanga Commission hearing, ruling and witness so you can follow the latest testimony without watching the live feed.
Use it to track what the Madlanga Commission heard each day, who testified, and what the commission ruled. Start with the latest Madlanga Commission hearings, the case files, the commissioners and evidence leaders, or the frequently asked questions about the Madlanga Commission.
The lead story
Latest Madlanga Commission case file
Case file · IDAC vs Crime Intelligence
The Khumalo arrest and the Mokwele appointment - IDAC's case under the microscope
IDAC charged a Crime Intelligence boss over a civilian's appointment. Sixteen days of testimony left the commission asking what the crime actually was - and by the end the prosecuting authority had withdrawn the case, IDAC's head had resigned, four of her own officials had testified against it, three senior investigators were suspended, and the chairperson had raised shutting the directorate down.
Read the case fileThe people
Latest witnesses before the Madlanga Commission
Lt-Gen Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya
National Head, Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), 2018 to 2025
The retired national head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, the specialised unit known as the Hawks, which he led from 2018 until his retirement in 2025. He came to the Madlanga Commission's record long before he came to its witness box. From October 2025 a succession of police witnesses described the night of 6 December 2024, when members of the KwaZulu-Natal Political Killings Task Team and the Special Task Force arrested murder-accused businessman Katiso 'KT' Molefe at his Sandhurst home and Hawks units unexpectedly arrived; in November 2025 Major General Kadwa testified that Lebeya had telephoned him to ask whether the Hawks were running an operation in Sandhurst, that he did not know where Lebeya had obtained the allegation that impostors were present, and that it was the first time in his career the national head had phoned him about a live operation. Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga said then that Lebeya would almost certainly be called. He testified for the first time on 27 August 2026 (Day 168), appearing at his own expense after the South African Police Service refused his application for state-funded legal representation, and denied the allegation on its premise: he does not know Molefe, was contacted instead by a Johannesburg businessman who uses the name Malcolm X, directed two senior managers to verify a claim that people were impersonating the Hawks in his name, and has never instructed members of the directorate to interrupt a legitimate police operation. He also told the commission that private investigator Paul O'Sullivan sought an update from him on the classified Phala Phala investigation and was refused, and confirmed that he had discussed misconduct allegations against then IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson with then National Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Shamila Batohi. He returned for a second appearance on 1 September 2026 (Day 171), when evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube moved him off Sandhurst and onto the roughly 541kg of cocaine, worth about R200 million, seized at Durban harbour in 2021 and then stolen from a walk-in safe at the Hawks' Port Shepstone offices. He said he did not know where the consignment had been stored until after it was gone, which contradicts the evidence of his former KwaZulu-Natal provincial head Major General Lesetja Senona, who told this commission he had informed him; asked to resolve it, Lebeya would not say Senona had lied. He concluded his evidence on 2 September 2026 (Day 172), when evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube showed him a photograph recovered from Katiso Molefe's phone of the five men the commission's evidence identifies as the alleged 'Big Five', and he said he knew none of them and had no knowledge of the grouping. Pressed on a WhatsApp message of 6 December 2024 in which Malcolm X thanked him on behalf of a man called 'King Nyambose', he said he had never asked who that was; Justice Madlanga asked him directly what he was being thanked for. He confirmed he had known since October 2023 that Malcolm X had been arrested with three police officers on corruption and extortion allegations. He ended three days on the stand with two words about himself: 'I am incorruptible.' Nothing on this page is a finding, every allegation is untested, and everyone named is presumed innocent.
Dr Mark Shaw
Executive Director, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime
The executive director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, the Geneva-based research network that compiles the global organised crime index, and a long-standing analyst of South African criminal markets. He gave expert evidence to the Madlanga Commission on 2 September 2026 (Day 172), the last public sitting before the commission's September recess, and he is the first witness the archive has recorded who was not there to answer for anything or to accuse anyone. His purpose was measurement. Per EWN and SABC News, he told the panel that 'South Africa is in the top 5% of all countries in the world in respect of criminal markets and actors as measured by the index', placing the country alongside Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Lebanon, Turkey and Kenya, and seventh out of the 193 countries surveyed. He testified that South Africa's homicide rate exceeds those of Colombia and Mexico and now resembles Ecuador's, that Gqeberha ranks third globally among cities affected by territorial gang violence with Cape Town also severely affected, and that the country's criminal markets span drug trafficking, extortion, financial crime, illicit trade and cybercrime. He tied the ranking to state capture and to the infiltration of state institutions by criminal networks, which is this commission's own mandate expressed as comparative research, and said repeated state interventions have failed to reach the causes of the violence. He then turned to remedies, taking the panel through Italy's restructuring of its anti-mafia prosecution system and identifying the absence of legislation dealing with the unexplained wealth of public officials as a gap in South African law. His evidence is expert opinion placed before a commission of inquiry. It is not a finding, and it makes no allegation against any individual.
Lieutenant-Col Deenadayalan Govender
Head of the Hawks' KwaZulu-Natal provincial tracing team; former commander of the province's cash-in-transit task team, South African Police Service
The South African Police Service officer who headed the cash-in-transit task team in KwaZulu-Natal, now attached to the Hawks' Serious Organised Crime Unit as head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation's KwaZulu-Natal provincial tracing team, and the man at the centre of the evidence the Madlanga Commission began hearing on 12 August 2026 (Day 157) about alleged police hit squads in the province. Len Barnabas John, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate's deputy director for investigations in KwaZulu-Natal, told the commission that the majority of the shootings of alleged cash-in-transit suspects examined by IPID involved a task team under Govender's command, and alleged that Govender - whose SAPS take-home pay was under R26,000 a month - received suspicious cash payments totalling more than R2.5 million from the owner of a tow-truck company between August 2022 and December 2023, and more than R2.7 million in connection with the killing of alleged drug figure Bevan Loftus. Gregory Loftus, Bevan's father and a former police officer, testified on Day 158 that he had gone to court the day before the killing to interdict Govender and the SAPS from murdering his son. Govender took the stand for the first time on 21 August 2026 (Day 164) and refuted the allegations against him. He also made an allegation of his own: that he was approached and pressured to give evidence implicating KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, and that on a telephone call placed by a colleague, suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu told them they must not let anyone ruin the country and instructed them to tell the commission that the police shootings had been carried out on Mkhwanazi's instructions. He returned to the stand on 31 August 2026 (Day 170), after the commission refused his application to give that part of his evidence behind closed doors, and the day split in two: he hardened his allegation against Mchunu, dating the meeting to 20 August 2026 and saying he recorded it, and he was then taken by chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC through 65 cash deposits totalling R1.7 million into accounts held by him and his wife between August 2022 and December 2023, a pattern Chaskalson put to him as having 'all the hallmarks of money laundering'. He denied receiving anything from tow-truck operator Clive Naicker and denied any personal relationship with him. Everything on this page is untested. The allegations against Govender have not been considered by any court and he is presumed innocent; his own allegation against Mchunu has not been answered before this commission and Mchunu is presumed innocent. Nothing recorded here is a finding of any kind.
Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni
Taxi owner; president, South African Local and Long Distance Taxi and Bus Organisation
One of the largest operators in the South African minibus taxi industry, and for the past year one of the names this commission has heard about without hearing from. He entered the industry as a driver in 1985, bought his first taxi in 1995, and now runs a fleet of roughly 400 vehicles across Gauteng and Mpumalanga; he is president of the South African Local and Long Distance Taxi and Bus Organisation and a former Santaco provincial chairman and deputy president. Suspended Sergeant Fannie Nkosi told the commission that Sibanyoni was one of a 'group of five' businessmen, and investigators have alleged that the syndicate Crime Intelligence calls the Big Five manipulates police investigations and controls taxi routes through violence and extortion. Sibanyoni rejects that. Testifying under a Rule 10.6 notice on 28 August 2026 (Day 169), he told the commission he was the network's target rather than its member: that gunmen shot him in 2006 and again in August 2022, that the late taxi mogul Jotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi was behind the threat against him, that Msibi's death in January 2024 brought relief, and that he had asked then Police Minister Bheki Cele for an inquiry into a cartel with roots inside the police and been refused. He is the state's first witness in the attempted murder trial arising from the August 2022 shooting, in which Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala and four co-accused have pleaded not guilty. Separately, he was arrested on 12 May 2026 and faces extortion and two counts of money laundering over an alleged R2.2 million in protection fees demanded from a mining businessman between 2022 and 2025; he denies those charges. He read his statement into the record without completing his evidence and cross-examination was set down for 21 September 2026. Nothing on this page is a finding, every allegation both by and against him is untested, and everyone named is presumed innocent.
The objects
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Recent Madlanga Commission hearings
- 172
Dr Mark Shaw & Lt-Gen Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya
The last public sitting before the commission's recess ran two witnesses and two registers. In the morning retired Hawks national head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya concluded the evidence he began on 27 August, and evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube put a photograph in front of him. It had been recovered from the phone of murder-accused businessman Katiso 'KT' Molefe, and the commission's evidence is that it shows five men it has been calling the 'Big Five': Molefe himself, private security businessman Steve Motsumi, Ignatius Mothakathi, the man known as 'King Nyambose' - reported by SABC News and EWN as Andrew 'Boy' Mthethwa and by TimesLIVE and The Citizen as Jabu Mthethwa - and the late taxi boss Jotham 'Mswazi' Msibi. Lebeya said he knew none of it. 'I have no knowledge of that organised criminal grouping at all, and I even doubt if it is registered as an organised crime project,' he told the panel, per the African News Agency, and of the men in the picture: 'I don't think that it is strange that we do not know all people in South Africa. I do not know them.' The difficulty was a WhatsApp message. On 6 December 2024, the night Molefe was arrested at Sandhurst and Hawks units unexpectedly arrived, the businessman who uses the name Malcolm X wrote to Lebeya: 'Thank you for sending people who verified these gentlemen are policemen and King Nyambose really appreciates all your efforts general.' Lebeya's evidence, per The Citizen, was that he did not engage with it - 'I was not really interested in the message itself' and 'I did not ask him who is this King Nyambose' - and chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga would not leave it there: 'What were you being thanked for? And who on Earth is this Nyambose?' Segeels-Ncube put the pattern to him plainly: 'You were the head of the DPCI and there have been generals that have come before the commission who have been afraid to mention some of these individuals. I just find it bizarre that you do not know any of these individuals.' Lebeya also confirmed he had known since October 2023 that Malcolm X had been arrested with three police officers on corruption and extortion allegations. He closed on his own record: 'I am incorruptible.' In the afternoon the register changed completely. Dr Mark Shaw, executive director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, gave expert evidence placing everything the commission has heard this year inside an international measurement. Per EWN and SABC News, he told the panel that 'South Africa is in the top 5% of all countries in the world in respect of criminal markets and actors as measured by the index', that on a survey of 193 countries South Africa ranks seventh globally for organised crime, that its homicide rate exceeds Colombia's and Mexico's and now resembles Ecuador's, and that the country's criminal markets run from drug trafficking and extortion to financial crime, illicit trade and cybercrime. He tied the ranking to state capture and to criminal infiltration of state institutions, and pointed to what other jurisdictions did about it, including Italy's restructuring of its anti-mafia prosecution system and legislation on the unexplained wealth of public officials. The commission then rose. It goes into recess from 3 to 11 September and resumes on Monday 14 September. Nothing here is a finding. The 'Big Five' remains an alleged network, every person named in the photograph is presumed innocent, Lebeya denies wrongdoing, and none of it has been tested in any court.
- 171
Lt-Gen Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya
Two matters shared the second-to-last sitting before the commission's short recess. The first was the appearance the inquiry has been trying to secure since June. Suspended Crime Intelligence deputy head Major-General Feroz Khan was under subpoena to appear at the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College on Tuesday morning and did not come; only his legal team did. The cross-examination of retired Hawks national head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya was stood down so the panel could hear Khan's postponement application, and what the commission got was not a medical argument but a documentary one. Per the Mail & Guardian and TimesLIVE, evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC put up an affidavit from Khan's treating doctor, Dr Fine, in which the doctor said he had altered a medical certificate at the request of Khan's son. The original, dated 22 May 2026, recorded that Khan would be fit to return to work on 30 June; a version produced on 20 August moved that date to 27 June and added a diagnosis of extreme stress, depression and anxiety. The doctor said he warned that changing a certificate already handed in could amount to fraud, and was told it had not been handed in. Hassim said the police records showed that it had, and that what SAPS had actually asked Khan for was more detail on his diagnosis, not a new date. 'It was a lie,' she told the commission, per The Citizen. She also framed why the commission was pressing: the interest 'is not an interest in General Khan's health as such - it's an interest in understanding why a senior public officer who is under a compulsory process' should not have to appear. Khan's counsel resisted an independent examination, invoking a 'white coat effect' and warning of 'a further cascade of the current condition that is recorded in the latest report'. Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused to grant the postponement outright and instead borrowed the mechanism the commission used with Suleiman Carrim: Khan's evidence is postponed to Monday 28 September 2026 at 09:30, and he will be excused from appearing then only if he voluntarily submits by 8 September to an independent medical specialist agreed between his representatives and the evidence leaders, and that specialist reports that he cannot testify. His outstanding statement is due by 18 September. His general condition must be disclosed to the commission; the clinical detail may stay confidential. With the ruling delivered, Lebeya returned to the stand for his second appearance and evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube moved him off the Sandhurst arrest and onto the roughly 541kg of cocaine worth about R200 million that was seized at Durban harbour in 2021 and then stolen from a walk-in safe at the Hawks' Port Shepstone offices. Lebeya said he learned where the consignment was being kept only after it was gone: 'I can't recall him informing me as to where he has stored the drugs.' That is the opposite of what former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major General Lesetja Senona told this commission, which was that he had told Lebeya the Port Shepstone offices had safely stored a large quantity before. Segeels-Ncube put the fork to him directly: 'Because it's either that General Senona is lying, or you're lying, or you're both mistaken about what transpired.' Lebeya would not take it: 'I cannot say Senona had lied.' The commission also heard that the CCTV cameras and alarms at the office were not working and there was no round-the-clock guard, that firearms stored in the same place were left untouched, and that Senona had members down to the cleaners polygraphed after the theft while never being polygraphed himself, though the evidence is that he held keys to the safe room. Lebeya said the discipline of a provincial head's own conduct was a matter for the supervisory line, and said he had ordered both a fact-finding inquiry and a criminal investigation once he learned of the theft. He is part-heard. Nothing here is a finding. The allegations about the certificate, the theft and the storage are untested, no court has determined any of them, and everyone named is presumed innocent.
- 170
Lieutenant-Col Deenadayalan Govender
Lieutenant-Colonel Deenadayalan 'Deena' Govender, head of the Hawks' KwaZulu-Natal provincial tracing team and the officer at the centre of the commission's hit-squad phase, returned to the Brigitte Mabandla Justice College to continue the evidence he began on 21 August, before chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC. He came back having lost a procedural fight: per EWN his application to give this part of his evidence behind closed doors was refused on Sunday, so the questions about his bank accounts were asked in public. Two hearings then ran inside one sitting. In the first he was the accuser, hardening the allegation he first made on Day 164 into something with a date and an artefact: that on 20 August 2026, the day before he first took the stand, a man he names as Mavuso Ntandane pressed him to give evidence that provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi had sanctioned 172 extra-judicial police shootings, that suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was telephoned during the meeting and spoke to him, and that he recorded it. 'I know the minister's voice, I know it was him,' he told the commission, and of Mchunu: 'I respect this minister and I know him, I like him. But as an elder and senior person in government, he cannot lie.' Per the Sowetan he also testified that he was told acting national commissioner Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane had given Mkhwanazi seven days to explain the June 2026 briefing at which Mkhwanazi said 'we are at war' while Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo was inside Brooklyn police station, and that when he raised it Mkhwanazi told him 'you were not supposed to know about this'. In the second half he was the subject. Per The Citizen, Chaskalson took him through 65 cash deposits totalling R1.7 million into accounts held by him and his wife between August 2022 and December 2023 and told him the pattern had 'all the hallmarks of money laundering'. Govender broke down a R2.35 million property purchase across a bank loan, a mortgage bond, his son's account, his wife's credit card and R337,962 from a businessman he named as Josh Chellin; attributed other deposits to an FNB loan and to family; and, confronted with having credited the same two payments to his brother in bank records and to Chellin in his sworn affidavit, said 'I made a mistake somewhere along the line'. He denied taking money from Durban tow-truck operator Clive Naicker and denied any personal tie to him: 'My relationship with Clive Naicker is work-related. He assists with investigations. Um, I don't have a personal relationship with him, commissioner.' He is part-heard. Nothing here is a finding. His allegation against Mchunu is untested and Mchunu denies it; the allegations against Govender are untested, no court has considered them, and everyone named is presumed innocent.