Johannesburg - Acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane dropped a bombshell in Parliament this week when he suggested there was a possible cover-up in the Senzo Meyiwa investigation.
Phahlane said during his address to Members of Parliament this week when he explained that the main reason for the recent reconstruction of the murder scene in the Meyiwa investigation was to prevent a “cover up” which was hampering progress in solving the case.
In a startling revelation Phahlane told Parliament’s portfolio committee on police on Thursday that: “My view remains that there would have been a cover-up in that particular crime.”
Phahlane did not elaborate what he meant by the “cover-up”, but his spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi confirmed there had been “some form of cover-up in the investigation prior to the appointment of the multi-disciplinary task team that is under the sole leadership of Lieutenant-General Prince Mokotedi of the Hawks.
“I do not know how to explain this to you, because there are somethings that we know of that the public is unaware of in this investigation. And we can unfortunately not disclose it to you.”
Mulaudzi who stopped short of saying the initial investigators bungled the murder case, said: “All that I can say for now is that, while we do have good detectives and forensic investigators in the police service, why were they never used in this high profile case? Also why were very junior forensic personnel used in this case? Why?”
He said a breakthrough was only achieved last month when a special task team led by Gauteng Hawks boss, General Mokotedi, went back to the house where Meyiwa was killed to reconstruct the murder scene.
When The Sunday Independent insisted for more information regarding the alleged “cover-up”, Mulaudzi said: “Please be patient. It is just a matter of completing a few dotted lines before General Mokotedi briefs Commissioner Phahlane and General (Berning) Ntlemeza.” The latter is the overall head of Hawks.
An insider said General Ntlemeza has given the investigation team an ultimatum to arrest the suspects.
“He often asks members of the team if they are afraid to make an arrest,” said the insider.
The insider, who cannot be named, said the investigation was bungled from the moment Vosloorus police officers arrived at the crime scene on the night of October 26, 2014.
Meyiwa was gunned down in the house of his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s mother. In the house at the time were Khumalo, her mother Ntombi, younger sister Zandi and her boyfriend Longwe Twala, who is musician Chicco’s son. Two of Meyiwa’s friends, Mthokozisi Twala and Tumelo Madlala, were also present at the time.
South Africans have in recent weeks been anxiously waiting for the Hawks to make an arrest after some of their investigators indicated they had identified one of those who was in Kelly Khumalo’s family home in Vosloorus when Meyiwa was shot dead nearly two years ago, as a suspect.
But, instead, the Hawks last week deepened the mystery when they revealed - for the first time - the existence of a mystery they believe could hold the key to solving the crime.
A checked men’s fedora hat was apparently found at the scene of the crime after Meyiwa was killed in 2014.
Mokotedi last week told The Sunday Independent they believed the hat could hold the key to solving the Meyiwa’s death.
The Hawks were this week tight-lipped about the possible response they have received about the hat from the public.
Sunday Independent