The nonchalant alleged torture and killing of a cornered hijacking suspect by rogue law enforcement officials in Brakpan in June 2022 casts a long shadow over the country’s security and law enforcement sectors. Murdered Madlanga Inquiry witness, Marius “Vlam” van der Merwe, last month set out for the panel the horrifying scene he encountered early one morning after being called out to an “operation” in Sallies Village near the Vulcania Industrial Complex on the East Rand. The founder and managing director of the of private security firm, QRF Task Team, specialising in “vehicle tracking and recoveries and guarding”, said he walked in on SAPS and Ekhuruleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officials “tubing” a suspect with a blue plastic SAPS forensic bag.
Later, when the man had succumbed to his injuries, the killers had called now-suspended JMPD Chief, Julius Mkhwanazi, to come and “sort out the scene”. Mkhwanazi confirmed this in his testimony this week. The Metro Chief Supervisor sweated and drank copious amounts of water as he was finally “cornered” during cross-examination at the inquiry, admitting his culpability.
According to Van der Merwe’s testimony, Mkhwanazi had issued the order for those involved in the killing and extortion to get rid of the corpse “in a mineshaft or a river”. Van der Merwe was shot and killed in front of his wife and children outside his home on Friday night. Van der Merwe said he had first been alerted by Cobus Janse van Rensburg of Ghostguard Defensive Strategies, a “special high-risk” security company about the truck and stock recovery operation on a plot in the area.
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This had been stolen from a warehouse earlier. Janse van Rensburg had informed him that an operation “knocking” a house for a robbery suspect involving a four-ton truck was in progress and that he should head out to the scene. The 41-year-old father of two said he had been alone at home with his son at the time as his wife had taken his younger son to hospital.
However, he had made a plan and had driven through to the scene. On a plot in Sallies Village, he found various security companies as well as Jaco Hanekom, a SAPS informer, Wiandre Pretorius, “a person who presents himself as SAPS member”, said Van der Merwe, Constable Juan-Mare Eksteen from SAPS Flying Squad and Brakpan reserve Constable, Zander Fritz Also present were Ekhuruleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officers, Kersha-Leigh Stols and Aiden McKenzie, as well as Etienne van der Walt of Titen Security and Janse van Rensburg, who had all been in the main house with the suspect.
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