Brandon Nel|Published5 hours agoLeaked messages, murder claims and Malema: Inside the case against Major-General Feroz Khan

Newly released Madlanga Commission court papers paint a dramatic picture of alleged links between senior crime intelligence figure Feroz Khan, tobacco smugglers, politicians and suspected criminal operatives. The documents contain claims of leaked police secrets, political interference, contract manipulation and connections to a murder cover-up, allegations Khan has yet to answer under oath ahead of his scheduled appearance before the commission on July 1. After repeatedly forcing a plastic bag over a man’s face so he could not breathe, and beating him over and over again until he died, the killers did not panic.

In fact, one of them was so calm about it that he told his accomplices he would phone SA’s deputy Crime Intelligence head Maj-Gen Feroz Khan to “fix this” and find out how to get rid of the body. The father of five, Emmanuel Mbense, was then dumped in the Duduza Dam in Nigel. If the Madlanga Commission’s 750-page court papers are anything to go by, the killers were brazen and confident, seemingly believing they would face no consequences due to their alleged connection to Khan.

Khan, the commission alleged, used his position to leak sensitive police information to associates such as alleged tobacco smuggler Mohammed “Mo” Sayed and to interfere in investigations. The papers, which were filed in the Johannesburg High Court and released publicly this week, stem from evidence obtained by the commission’s investigators. This follows the seizure of a hard drive and an iPhone 11 during Khan’s arrest at his Houghton apartment in Johannesburg last month.

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Gauteng Hawks head Major General Ebrahim Kadwa and Durban businessman Tariq Downes were also arrested. The devices are said to have contained downloaded WhatsApp messages belonging to Khan. Those messages, it is alleged, show how he communicated withSayedand shared sensitive police information. Chief among the allegations is that he leaked top-secret police files, including the name and private home address of the state’s main complainant in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal, curator Anoosh Rooplal, to EFF leader Julius Malema.

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