Suspended Ekurhuleni Metro Police deputy chief Julius Mkhwanazi has told Parliament he did not know murdered Madlanga Commission witness Marius van der Merwe, who implicated him in a cover-up. Mkhwanazi has, however, confirmed to once being close to organised crime accused Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala and accepting money from him. In November 2025, former Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officer Marius van der Merwe testified at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry about his role in an alleged 2022 cover-up involving the torture and murder of a robbery suspect.
Among those he implicated was EMPD deputy chief Julius Mkhwanazi, whom he alleged instructed him to dump a body (and who has also essentially been accused of running a rogue unit). The following month, on 5 December 2025, Van Der Merwe, the director of a private security company, was murdered outside his Brakpan home in Ekurhuleni. Up until that point, he had been known publicly as Witness D, a pseudonym assigned to him for safety reasons when he testified before the Madlanga Commission, which is investigating allegations that a drug cartel has infiltrated South Africa’s criminal justice system, politics and private security.
It was at this commission that Van Der Merwe had testified about the torture and murder cover-up, and implicated Mkhwanazi. Now Mkhwanazi has spoken out about what Van Der Merwe alleged. “I don’t know Witness D and Witness D doesn’t know me,” he said on Thursday, 22 January 2026, at Parliament’s ad hoc committee that is investigating the same allegations as the Madlanga Commission.
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Mkhwanazi told the ad hoc committee that he had a photograph “where [Van Der Merwe’s] torturing a mother” using plastic. He therefore hinted that Van Der Merwe had been involved in criminality, similar to the cover-up allegations that Van Der Merwe previously made against him. “My family, my kids, and I… this thing has disturbed them,” Mkhwanazi said.
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