Top police officer challenges 'stay at home' order

South Africa's Deputy National Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General-Shadrack Sibiya has turned to the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) in an urgent bid to return to work, charging that his orders regarding the disbandment of the police’s Political Killings Task Team and what happened to its dockets came from National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola. A News24 report notes Sibiya was implicated by KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi in allegations around criminals having captured the country’s criminal justice system. On Friday, Sibiya launched an urgent application in the High Court for an order overturning what he says was a direction from Masemola to ‘stay at home, pending an investigation’. He also wants the order to interdict Masemola ‘from instituting parallel proceedings and action’ against him pending the conclusion of the commission. ‘The national commissioner is aware that the instructions regarding the Political Killings Task Team did not emanate from me,’ Sibiya said in the papers. ‘The instructions regarding the task team were issued to the national commissioner by the erstwhile Minister of Police… He in turn conveyed the instruction to me in January 2025.’

Mkhwanazi has charged that the task team had been disbanded after a group of KZN officers were sent to Gauteng to assist in investigations into the April 2024 assassination of Vaal engineer Armand Swart and linked the weapons used in that murder to a string of other high-profile crimes. He said 121 case dockets were subsequently taken away from the team at the direction of Sibiya, acting ‘on the instruction of the Minister of Police’ and without the national commissioner or Mkhwanazi’s authority. He further said the dockets had been sitting idle at head office since then and that Sibiya ‘withdrew all these dockets and they are sitting in an archive in his office in Pretoria’. However, the News24 report says Sibiya, in his court papers, sought to ‘correct’ Mkhwanazi’s version. He put up a letter he said Police Minister Senzo Mchunu wrote to Masemola on 31 December, saying: ‘My observation in this regard is that further existence of this team is no longer required nor is it adding any value to policing in SA. I further direct that the Political Killings Task Team be disbanded immediately.’ The Minister further requested a preliminary report. Sibiya said he received an email from the national commissioner’s office three days later to ‘communicate the deactivation’ to the team and submit a ‘close-up report’. He subsequently wrote to Crime Intelligence boss Major-General Dumisani Khumalo – who was last month arrested in connection with alleged unlawful senior appointments – and stressed that he indicated ‘comprehensive handover protocols were to be established’.

According to the News24 report, Mkhwanazi also linked Sibiya to the likes of power broker Brown Mogotsi and attempted murder-accused businessman Vusimusi ‘Cat’ Matlala via communications he said were recovered from the latter’s cellphone. Sibiya, in his papers, said: ‘The claim that I am associated with persons under investigation and that this allegation necessarily means I am of dubious character smacks of dishonesty, is false, irrational and wholly unsubstantiated.’ ‘There is no evidence of such association as none exists. There is also no basis for the assertion that the alleged association has elements of dishonesty. I have never been dishonest to my employer.’ Sibiya ultimately maintained that the investigations into him as well as the instruction he had received from Masemola to ‘stay at home’ pending the outcome thereof – which he described as a ‘disguised suspension’ – were ‘unlawful’ as the commissioner was not empowered to make these decisions. He accused Masemola of having been biased or having ‘created a reasonable apprehension of bias’ and taking the decisions ‘in bad faith for an ulterior motive’.