Illustrative image | Abdella Hussein Abadiga and his bodyguard Kadir Jemal Abotese walking in the Mall of Africa on 29 December 2022. (CCTV footage) | Chief of the SANDF, General Rudzani Maphwanya. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sharon Seretlo) | Soldiers from the SANDF. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach) | Tugboats prepare Lady R to leave Simon’s Town Naval Base. (Photo: Supplied) | Assassinated Hawks Lieutenant-Colonel Frans Mathipa. (Photo: Supplied) 
In December 2023, the head of the SANDF, General Rudzani Maphwanya, was categoric.
“For the record,” he said, “there are no military squads in the defence force that exist to carry out acts of torture and murder, for whatever reasons. The SANDF stands for the defence and the protection of the people and will always act within the confines of the law and the Constitution.”
But last week 12 people under his ultimate command were arrested in connection with the murder of Hawks investigator Frans Mathipa.
As Open Secrets has explained, Mathipa was investigating the illegal and violent abduction of the Ethiopian national Abdella Hussein Abadiga from the Mall of Africa in December 2022.
Open Secrets has also linked cars used in that abduction to vehicles at the Simon’s Town dock when the Russian vessel the Lady R docked there. These vehicles are known to be owned by the Special Forces unit of the SANDF.
Also, it has been pointed out that Mathipa was shot dead while driving a moving car, a hit that reportedly could only be carried out by someone with military training.
There are so many questions around this, some of which may force President Cyril Ramaphosa to act.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. This is a group of Special Forces soldiers who are accused of killing a senior police investigator.
It would seem likely the Police Minister Senzo Mchunu would have informed the Defence Minister Angie Motshekga what the Hawks were going to do before they made last week’s arrests. And both might well have informed Ramaphosa.
For the moment, it appears the system worked, the police were able to make the arrests and faced no violent opposition. Considering that these are members of a Special Forces unit, this is no small victory.
But it is only the beginning of where this could lead.
What did Maphwanya know?
It would appear the best case scenario here is that when Maphwanya issued his denial he genuinely did not know the truth.
Even if that is the case, a Commander-in-Chief might well be entitled to demand answers about how he did not know. It might not be enough to rely on reports that are kept secret. A democratically elected head of state would want to know how Maphwanya was unaware, and how he could make sure this would not happen again.
But this is the best-case scenario. Most of the others are worse.
If Maphwanya knew about these activities then he surely cannot stay in the job. It would be proof that he is prepared to allow people under his command to kill police officers.
Important reporting over the weekend by News 24’s Erika Gibson shows the SANDF is going to pay for this squad’s legal defense, including briefing senior counsel.
This might well suggest that Maphwanya, or at least the institution he heads, is either going to argue these men had a proper motive that he sanctioned, or that they are not guilty (in which case, which militarily trained assassin killed Mathipa?)
There are other scenarios that are not as bad as that, but still pose problems.
It has been claimed that when Abadiga was abducted, the US Treasury Department had put him on a sanctions list, and that he was seen as a person allegedly affiliated to Isis.
Nearly 20 years ago, in 2006, a man called Khalid Rashid was accused of being connected to terrorist networks. He was a Pakistani national who was living in Estcourt in KwaZulu-Natal.
When he disappeared the lawyer Zehir Omar launched a series of court cases forcing Home Affairs to reveal where he was.
Through a series of court rulings and one or two strange incidents (including a document that mysteriously arrived in Omar’s food hamper) it was eventually confirmed that Rashid had been extraordinarily renditioned.
In other words, he had been removed from the country at the request of American and British intelligence agencies.
Perhaps Abadiga suffered a similar fate. And while that would be illegal, it might well fall under the ambit of the SANDF trying to protect South Africans from threats.
Some people might accept that explanation. Maybe. But this still does not explain the other claim against this SANDF unit, that it was involved in torture.
The case of Pule Nkomo, who told Open Secrets how he had been tortured, might suggest there is more to this unit than just the Abadiga case.
A relatively small incident might well suggest this group has a pattern of breaking the law.
Among the charges they face is one of fraud. They lodged a claim with Outsurance claiming the BMW that they used in the alleged hit had been stolen.
One might have some sympathy for the insurance investigators at Outsurance. Are they really going to probe what this unit was doing?
If it is the same group of people who were involved, this shows a particular pattern. And if it was a pattern, then it would seem incredible that Maphwanya did not know what this group was doing.
SANDF vs SAPS
Within all of this is another set of complicated dynamics. There is a general perception that the SAPS will deal with people within South Africa, while the SANDF will protect those people from threats from outside the country.
Of course, this line is often blurred, and citizens themselves demanded the SANDF help protect them during the violence in July 2021. And the SANDF has a constitutional duty to protect South Africans.
The stakes here are incredibly high.
The SANDF and the SAPS are the two biggest organisations that employ people and give them firearms. For one to attack the other, as this unit is alleged to have done in killing Hawks investigator Mathipa, may have the potential to spiral out of control.
It is important to remember that the fact that the SAPS were able to make these arrests shows this prospect is incredibly unlikely. But it has happened in other countries with disastrous results.
In Lesotho the police and the military ended up on opposite sides of a political dispute. In at least one case there was a shootout between members of the two groups.
The person who can play the biggest role in ensuring that this does not happen is obviously Ramaphosa. He might well need to ask serious questions around Maphwanya.
As usual, the most important questions will probably be: What did Maphwanya know? And when did Maphwanya know it? But for the moment it appears that he is supporting people who are accused of killing a senior member of the police.
This issue will not go away. Instead it will require active political management. Ramaphosa may have to make decisions that he, or any leader, would rather avoid. DM